EDITORIAL: RELL’S VETO OF NUTRITION BILL MISGUIDED

Governor Rell has vetoed a bill designed to tackle obesity. Senate Bill 1080, An Act Concerning Access to Health and Nutritional Information in Restaurants: This bill would have required chain restaurants in Connecticut to disclose on their printed menus or menu boards total calorie counts for standard menu items. The state Department of Public Health would have been charged with enforcing the measure.

Although Governor Rell noted the cost such a bill would impose on restaurateurs and on the Department of Public Health,  by stating “This is hardly the economic climate in which to further burden our businesses and state agencies”, she failed to not that the bill had a clause at 4 (g) which states: (g) The provisions of this section shall not be construed to preclude any chain restaurant from voluntarily providing nutritional information that is supplemental to the requirements of this section. In other words the bill would have allowed restaurants covered by bill to act voluntarily. No statement from the Governor on the cost of such voluntary actions or proof that such actions would and do negatively impact the bottom line of Restaurants. The bill would also have repealed Section 19a-36a of the general statutes and added the requirement that the Department of Public Health monitor compliance. This was also cited by the Governor as costly to restaurants. However a detailed reading of the bill revels that it only required “reasonable” actions to comply. The use of this word provided a means for restaurants to comply and not face economic hardship, yet the Governor did not mention this provision which states: (11) “Reasonable means” means any reasonable means recognized by the federal Food and Drug Administration in determining nutritional information and calorie total information for a standard menu item, as such item is usually prepared and offered for sale, including, but not limited to, use of nutrient databases and laboratory analyses.

Obesity is associated with many diseases, particularly heart disease, type 2 diabetes, breathing difficulties during sleep, certain types of cancer, and osteoarthritis. This disease was the target of the bill not the economic well being of restaurants. We urge the Legislature to over ride the Governors veto.