EDITORIAL: LA politician wants to mandate vendors sell vegan food

Those who are in the business of selling food have a plethora of government-imposed regulations they must abide by, and indeed, some of those mandates make sense. Nobody should be paying for food that’s tainted or handled poorly by those making it, so rules to prevent such occurrences are understandable.

But that’s not enough for some of today’s professional busybodies, such as Los Angeles City Councilman Paul Koretz.

As reported by Reason’s Scott Shackford, Mr. Koretz’s wife and daughter are vegans, so he has proposed a citywide ordinance requiring concessions at major venues to sell vegan food. And not just at publicly owned venues — airports and the like — but also privately owned and operated businesses such as movie theaters and stadiums. Further, Mr. Shackford wrote that the ordinance would be specifically for vegan protein options.

The problems with this plan are too numerous to list in full, but let’s start with this: Mr. Koretz’s wife and daughter have made the free choice to be vegans. If that makes them happier or healthier, hooray for them. But no one should be allowed to impose those freely made life choices on others.

Specific to this case, we’re talking about an ordinance that would cater to a tiny minority among all those who attend movies or sporting events. Vendors in these venues make a profit and stay in business by offering food and beverage that the overwhelming majority of attendees actually want to eat. Doing otherwise is a quick route to bankruptcy.

Mr. Koretz’s asinine proposal not only doesn’t serve the bulk of the customer base, but adds a layer of expense to the vendor, who could well end up throwing away much of that product, as Mr. Shackford noted: “So what happens when a movie theater buys vegan dogs as ordered, but people don’t want to buy them or eat them because they’re gross? Seriously, I know vegans who won’t touch them.”

What happens is that the vendor eats the cost in lost dollars, cutting into those narrow profit margins. And if profit margins are cut, jobs could be lost and, in the worst-case scenario, businesses could fold. All because a virtue-signaling city councilman wants to meddle in what should be a decision that’s left to private businesses.

This proposed ordinance is yet another example of how the progressive utopia is actually a bastion of coercion and authoritarianism. It’s all about force — using the heavy hand of government to make others bow to your wishes. Heaven forbid that business owners should be free to make their own choices based on consumer demand.

Mr. Koretz needs a crash course in economics. If customers are clamoring loudly for alternative menu choices at the movies or ballgames and such, vendors will respond to that demand. In fact, Mr. Shackford noted that Staples Center and Dodger Stadium indeed offer vegan dogs. If there’s money to be made, the market will respond. Mr. Koretz is free to risk his own money by starting his own vegan food business if he wishes, but otherwise he should stay out of the way.