Dear San Luis Obispo County Supervisors, Within a very short time you will have the privilege of voting to accept or reject the proposed McDonaldâs hamburger franchise in Los Osos. LOCAC has decided to support the Planning Commissionâs plans for a McDonaldâs in Los Osos without a drive-through and no 24 hr. operation. This is a start for a sane solution to the proposed McDonaldâs in Los Osos. I, however, am against any form of McDonaldâs in Los Osos. Below are my reasons for not supporting any McDonaldâs in my community. At the heart of McDonaldâs restaurant chain of stores is a purely money making motivation. McDonaldâs serves basically unhealthy food. McDonaldâs restaurant will take income away from the other restaurants in town that are owned and operated by people who live in Los Osos and depend on our community for their livelihood. McDonaldâs is not a good fit for the community of Los Osos. In fact, McDonaldâs is the antithesis of what our community is. Los Osos is a relatively small bedroom community that enjoys the simple quiet, easy going life style that embraces a small town feel. McDonaldâs restaurant would change the feel and vibration of our community in an unsightly and negative way. I would gladly encourage a locally owned slow food restaurant next to where our Minerâs hardware store, the Vonâs supermarket and the Los Osos Fitness gym now exist. I would gladly encourage another locally owned daytime business to coexist with our other businesses in the Vonâs shopping center. I do not condone a McDonaldâs and I hope that the County Supervisors will grasp just how very many in Los Osos are opposed to a McDonaldâs in Los Osos and vote the overwhelming majorityâs will on this proposed business. Below are some facts taken from Erich Schlossers book Fast Food Nation that explain the impact of McDonalds corporation. Sincerely, William R. Moylan McDonalds facts 1. McDonalds spends more on advertising than any other brand in the world. 2. It runs more playgrounds than any other private entity in the world. 3. It gives away more toys than any other private entity in the world. 4. The Golden Arches are more widely known in the world today than the Christian cross. 5. Ray Kroc, the founder of McDonalds said this: We have found that we cannot trust some people who are nonconformists. We will make conformists out of them in a hurry. The organization cannot trust the individual; the individual must trust the organization. 6. The vast majority of workers at McDonalds lack full-time employment, do not have any benefits, have no or little control over their workplace, and quit after a few months. 7. The average American now consumes three hamburgers and four orders of french fries per week. 8. Due in part to the industrialization of agriculture driven by the fast- food industry, the United States is losing farmers so fast that it now has more prisoners than farmers. 9. Every month, 90 percent of the children between 3 and 9 in America visit a McDonalds. 10. In a survey of 9 and 10-year-olds, half of them said they thought that Ronald McDonald knew best what kids should eat. In China, kids said that Ronald McDonald was kind, funny, gentle and understood childrens hearts. 11. McDonalds uses a computer program called Quintillion that uses satellite imagery, GPS maps and demographic tables to automatically site new restaurants. As one observer noted, McDonalds uses the same equipment developed during the Cold War to spy on their customers. 12. McDonalds jobs have been purposely de-skilled so as to be able to hire minimum-wage workers on an interchangeable basis. One-third of fast-food workers speak no English. 13. McDonalds and other chains are aiming for automated equipment that will require zero training and are nearly there. Nevertheless, they fight hard to retain hundreds of millions of dollars of government subsidies for training their workers. A worker has only to work for 400 hours for the chain to receive its $2,400 subsidy. In essence, the American taxpayer subsidizes low wages, automation and turnover at fast-food chains. 14. Fast-food pays a higher proportion of minimum wage to its workers than any other industry in America. 15. McDonalds is the largest purchaser of beef in the world. 16. McDonalds buys from five large meatpackers. These companies have gained a stranglehold over the industry (just as in potatoes) that has driven down prices. Over the past 20 years, 500,000 cattle ranchers have gone out of business. Over that time, the ranchers share of every beef dollar has fallen from 63 cents to 46 cents. 17. To satisfy and take advantage of the worldwide growth of fast-food, the large chicken and beef packers in the United States are buying out local companies all around the world. Cargill, IBP and Tysons control the world meat industry because of fast-food chains. 18. Chicken McNuggets were also cooked in beef tallow until public outrage caused McDonalds to stop. Even in vegetable oil, Chicken McNuggets contain twice the fat per ounce as a hamburger. 19. Every time you eat a hamburger, you are eating anabolic steroids, antibiotics and fecal matter. You can read it again. And it will still be true. 20. Feedlot cattle are also given shredded packaging, cardboard boxes, cement and sawdust to put on weight. 21. In 1991, only four states had obesity rates of 15 percent or higher. Today, 37 states do. Fifty million Americans are obese or super obese. Obesity is second only to smoking as a cause of mortality in America today. 22. The annual health costs to America stemming from obesity are $240 billion. The costs are exactly double fast-food chain revenues. 23. Between 1984 and 1993, the number of fast-food restaurants doubled in Great Britain. Obesity doubled there over the same period. 24. The EU found that 95 percent of the ads there encouraged kids to eat foods high in sugar, salt and fat. The company running the most ads aimed at children was McDonalds. Source: Eric Schlossers Fast Food Nation, (Houghton Mifflin, 2001). The book is extensively footnoted with citations for the above. Paul Hawken is the author of The Ecology of Commerce and Natural Capitalism. He is the founder of the Sausalito-based Natural Capital Institute and is on the advisory board of Food First/Institute for Food and Development Policy in Oakland. ©2002 San Francisco Chronicle ###
Posted on: Mon, 07 Apr 2014 05:30:20 +0000
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