New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg is apparently cool with the idea that Manhattanites should eat mor chikin. He just doesn't want to let them wash it down with a large soda.
The King of the Nannies went on the radio today to offer his two cents on the new fad that's all the rage among the mayors of major metropolitan areas: Making a lot of threats but then pulling back from actually banning the fast food chain Chick-fil-A from their cities—Boston, San Francisco, and all the cool kids are doing it—after CEO Dan Cathy said he supports "the biblical definition of the family unit."
"I disagree with them really strongly on this one," Bloomberg said on the John Gambling radio show. "You can't have a test for what the owners' personal views are before you decide to give a permit to do something in the city. You really don't want to ask political beliefs or religious beliefs before you issue a permit. That's just not government's job." "This is just a bad idea and it's not going to happen in New York City," Bloomberg added.
Give a guy credit: If the only thing I knew about Bloomberg was what you just read above, I would go drop a campaign donation on him right now. It is hard to think of more horrendously terrible idea than for the mayors of cities to start denying business licenses to companies just because their CEOs totally suck and are very wrong about marriage.
(Bloomberg took a similar stance during the Ground Zero Mosque controversy, arguing that a zoning board was not the place to hash out such issues and causing Bloomberg nemesis and Reason Senior Editor Jacob Sullum to write: "Since I don't think I have ever had occasion to praise New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and may never again, I will seize the opportunity to say that he is taking exactly the right position.")
Personally, I won't be eating at Chick-fil-A anytime soon. But (words I never thought I'd say in a post about restaurant regulation): Bloomberg is right. That's just not the government's job.
Let's not get crazy or anything. Bloomberg can still suck my Gray's Papaya when it comes to limiting personal and economic freedoms. Don't forget that this is the same guy who has banned large sodas, mandated menu labeling, banned trans fats, cracked down on alcohol sales, and even limited school bake sales. He was (quite rightly) Reason TV's Nanny of the Month in May:
But when a guy is right, he's right. If you see Mike, buy him a large McChicken value meal—on me.
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