Alliance on the Insider

In today's Crain's In$ider the newsletter refers to the Alliance's support of a city council measure against trans fat, support that comes more from procedural concerns than any substantive differences between the council and the city's Department of Health on the trans fat issue. The worry here is the lack of the proper outreach to local restaurants and the short implementation phase-in with the Department's regulatory move.

As Crain's says, the Alliance's Richard Lipsky has told law makers that the restaurants outside Manhattan are "fuzzy" on Dr. Frieden's plan and; "What we're afraid of is that the educational effort that they'll undertake will be a $1,000 fine." We are hopeful that, with the council's intervention, we'll be able to get some better protections put into place.

Elsewhere, the NY Sun, in reporting on the mayor's gun summit, reiterates the fact that Chicago's Mayor Daley doesn't see eye to eye with Bloomberg on the issue of trans fat. The Alliance will be meeting with the DOH today on some unrelated issues regarding health policy and the supermarkets. We will, however, make overtures to the department in order to establish dialogue on the educational and outreach issues with trans fat and restaurants.