Curbing Bad Impulses in the West

Retailers in the Western United States, having survived the punishing rains in California, are coping with the litigiously obese, proposed minimum wage increases and the ongoing issue of pseudoephedrine regulation.

If you're overweight in Idaho, you won't be able to sue anyone because of it. Gov. Dirk Kempthorne has signed the Idaho Commonsense Consumption Act into law, shielding manufacturers, packers, distributors, carriers, holders, sellers, marketers and advertisers in the food industry from lawsuits related to obesity and weight gain.

So far, 14 states have enacted such "cheeseburger bills." Wyoming is one of the 18 considering such legislation, with a bill awaiting Senate action that protects restaurants, advertisers, ranchers and others from similar lawsuits.

The U.S. House approved the concept last March, passing the Personal Responsibility in Food Consumption Act, but the Senate has not acted on it.

In Arizona, retailers are trying to convince lawmakers that when it comes to controlling methamphetamine abuse by restricting pseudoephedrine sales, what works in one place won't work everywhere. "We're not Oklahoma," declared Richard Jennings, president of the Arizona Food Marketing Alliance (AFMA). "Our attorney general is trying to get an Arizona meth control law passed based on the Oklahoma model. But we're a border state and 90 percent of our meth comes across the border. If he has his way, he'll take perfectly legal over-the-counter cold and allergy medicines off retailers' shelves, depriving our people of their benefits, and it won't make a dent in the production and use of methamphetamine in Arizona."

In Oklahoma, the law has reduced methamphetamine usage by as much as 70 percent, according to some, by restricting the sale of tablets containing pseudoephedrine, and mandating that certain medicines containing psuedoephredine be kept behind retail counters. It also requires buyers to show IDs, and gives judges the right to deny bail to chronic meth offenders. "It may work in Oklahoma," says Jennings, "but it won't in Arizona."

In Nevada, the minimum wage bill in front of the state legislature is being opposed by the Retail Association of Nevada (RAN). Its major provisions include indexing the wage to the CPI with a 3 percent cap; a requirement that the employer pay everything above 10 percent of an employee's wages for health insurance; and that the employer pay health insurance for an employee's wife and child, if he chooses to, in return for a credit.

The bill also calls for a $1 raise above the federal minimum wage of $5.15. Thus far, RAN has not taken a position on the wage increase, although the association is against it if it comes on top of federal proposals that would raise the minimum to $7.00 and more.

California has always been the epitome of cool, but now it might be the home of COOL as well. In this case, that means Country of Origin Labeling, in which a product is identified as to where it came from. The California legislature is considering a state-sponsored COOL bill that the California Independent Grocers Association (CIGA) is opposing. It would "require anyone operating a retail facility or food store that sells unprocessed imported or blended beef to indicate in a clear and conspicuous manner the beef's country, or countries, of origin."

John Handley, the government relations director for CIGA, points out that the U.S. Department of Agriculture need not require labeling records to be maintained by retail stores, since "a complete supplier record [is] the only record necessary at store level."

In other California news, at least half of the 649 retailers checked in Riverside County, Calif., from July to December last year sometimes charged more than the authorized price for their products. Overcharges amounted to less than 1 percent, with the errors attributed to negligence, miscommunication and unintentional double scanning, rather than dishonesty, said Bill Tracy, deputy sealer of weights and measures for the county.

Convenience stores, gas stations and major groceries were included in the inspections, with 16 stores in total given fines ranging from $160 to $300.

The record shows that in the other seven California counties that have undertaken price policing, the situation improves after the inspection programs begin. Those counties are San Diego, San Bernardino, Los Angeles, Ventura, San Mateo, Santa Clara and Santa Cruz.

Finally, when the rains came to California with a vengeance, the convenience store in one isolated town saved the day. "Once the road was washed out by the rain, my brother was stuck in the store for five days," said Gus Assbhor, owner of the 1,500-square-foot Sanchez Grocery, the only convenience store in Piru, Calif., 40 miles southeast of Los Angeles. "The whole town was isolated, so everyone came to the store for food and candles and flashlights and stuff and in three days we were sold out of everything. So the people called the police and they sent an escort to my other store and brought supplies in from there."

Fortunately, Sanchez Grocery survived the record storms that hit California in January and today business is back to normal.