Five hundred and ten calories in a corn muffin at Dunkin' Donuts? One thousand one hundred and fifty calories in a Garden Omelet at IHOP? And 2,210 calories in a Bloomin' Onion appetizer at Outback Steakhouse?
"It's shocking," said Loreta Gemeviciute of Manhattan, who used to buy Starbucks' Venti Mocha Frappuccinos until she glanced at their 500-calorie stats. "I could eat a whole, good meal for that many calories."
Since calorie counts appeared on menus across the city, New Yorkers have feasted on the cornucopia of data. Some consumers can hardly believe their eyes.
And perhaps they shouldn't.
The rule that went into effect on March 31 requires restaurants with 15 or more franchises nation-wide to post calorie data on menus. Concerned about the city's obesity epidemic, the Board of Health reasoned that people might shun some foods in favor of healthier ones if they knew just how many calories lurked beneath a Big Mac's special sauce and sesame seed bun. But while mandating that calorie data be displayed, the law does not address many issues surrounding the accuracy of the counts. Many nutritionists laud the city's efforts to help New Yorkers eat better, but critics say the law was hastily crafted and will be impossible to enforce.
Meanwhile, consumers will need to realize that all calorie counts are not created equal. Calorie data on New York's menus are subject to far less scrutiny than the nutrition labels on products sold in grocery stores.
For one thing, the calorie content of meals made to order can vary significantly, even at restaurants with standardized preparation methods.
"That's the trouble with food - you can't really get it down to a science when it's made to order," said Marissa Lippert, a registered dietician in Manhattan. "At a mid-level restaurant, will every single chicken breast be three ounces? Probably not. That could make a big difference."
When food preparers toss in a little extra cheese or a little more oil, nutrition data can be thrown off by hundreds of calories. Just ask Quanisha Stackhouse, who works at Nathan's.
"My small fries look like medium fries and my medium fries look like large fries," she said. "I figure if they're paying $7 for a meal, people want to get their money's worth. I've got extra bacon in the salads, extra everything."
So when it comes to calories on the plate and calories on the menu, how close is close enough?
The federal regulation concerning calorie counts on food sold in stores requires the number on the label be within 20 percent of the food's actual content. The New York City law, however, does not specify a degree of precision.
"It's indeed a rather extensive loophole," said Chuck Hunt, executive vice president at the New York State Restaurant Association. The association has challenged the rule in court, claiming it conflicts with federal regulations and violates the commercial free speech rights of the food companies.
Proponents of the law argue that restaurant menus usually fall within the ballpark of accuracy. But lab analysis of calorie claims has shown that restaurants' nutrition totals can be wildly inaccurate, even in the case of major chains.
When the Center for Science in the Public Interest, an advocacy group for nutrition and health, independently tested Olive Garden's calorie claims, it found major discrepancies. The chain's cappellini pomodoro, posted as under 640 calories, had 990 calories, or 55 percent more calories than stated.
Similar discrepancies surfaced when ABC2 News investigated meals at Taco Bell, Macaroni Grill, Cheesecake Factory and other restaurants. Macaroni Grill's "Skinny Chicken" meal, posted as 500 calories, came out as 1022 calories, more than twice the stated calories. Most dishes tested in the ABC2 News experiment also showed significant inaccuracies.
Under the new regulation, city restaurants will largely be taken at their word that the calorie totals they present are accurate. Unlike the federal Food and Drug Administration, the city has no system to police calorie labels.
"We will take appropriate action if we receive complaints; we haven't conducted any testing to date," said Jessica Scaperotti, press secretary for the city health department.
There is also no systematic testing to ensure that restaurants are not miscalculating - or misrepresenting - their data, according to the health department. In contrast, the FDA has complex procedures to test for accuracy under its food safety program.
"FDA inspections are risk based, meaning firms with a history of safety violations get inspected more than those that don't," said Michael Herndon, a spokesman for the agency. "And routine inspections are conducted."
Like the city, the FDA allows food manufacturers to compute their own calorie data, using lab analysis or other methods. But the FDA collects nutrition labels during routine inspections, performs lab analysis to check the listings for accuracy and reserves the power to recall a product from the shelves.
New York's law "is just not written as the FDA rule is written," said Sara Markt, deputy press secretary for the health department. Scaperotti added that the city may conduct testing if a restaurant's calorie data seems suspicious.
The city's new regulation could be food for lawsuits. Consumers who think a misleading calorie count constituted false advertising could take legal action against restaurants and the city. And since the rule does not set accuracy standards, it could feed disputes between restaurant owners and inspectors with differing interpretations of how precise the data must be.
"There are plaintiff lawyers just lurking in the shadows waiting to bring suits against restaurants for anything they do," said Hunt, who believes the city did not consider the possibility of lawsuits against restaurants when it crafted the law. "The thing about lawsuits is, no matter how absurd and ridiculous the claim is, you still have to defend yourself, and the legal fees are incredible," he added.
Lawsuits are already underway in Seattle against Applebee's and Chili's, for the calories counts on their menus. When a group of consumers was skeptical of the totals and had the meals tested in a lab, they found the food contained significantly more calories and fat than stated on the menus.
"If someone has a dietary or medical restriction, it's problematic and could have health effects," said David Breskin, a lead counsel on the case against these chains.
But since the New York City health department mandates and regulates the calorie information, the city could be at legal risk as well as its restaurants, according to Breskin. "There's a lot of interesting legal issues involved with that, one of which is whether there's a personal obligation owed by the city to a particular individual plaintiff," he said.
According to Breskin, cities are not usually liable to individuals, but some laws interpreted as creating a "special relationship" between individuals and the city open the door for citizens to sue municipal governments. He cited the example of homeowners who sometimes can sue building inspectors who inaccurately assess their properties.
Breskin added that mandatory disclaimers might help consumers understand that calorie counts can vary.
So should you simply ignore the calorie counts?
Not according to Lippert and other nutritionists, who see the new law as a useful step.
"There are a lot of benefits to the information that's being posted," she said. "If there's a sandwich listed as 400 calories and one that's 1,100, people can attempt to choose the lower-calorie item."
The city, though, suggests the total be used in a more precise manner. "Just 100 extra calories every day adds up to 10 pounds a year. Extra pounds can lead to obesity and diabetes, two major health problems on the rise in New York City, as well as heart disease," reads the city's compliance guide issued to restaurants.
Calorie counts off by more than 100 calories already have some consumers baffled. A photo of two Dunkin Donuts franchises showed one posting a chocolate glazed doughnut with 80 calories, while another listed it with 340 calories (sorry, doughnut lovers - it's the latter).
And when Sheryl Imperati , who blogs about the diet that has allowed her to drop from 196 to 146 pounds, saw that Starbuck's peach apple tart had just 120 calories, she thought she'd discovered every dieter's dream. "I almost don't even believe it," she wrote at the time.
Imperati encouraged readers to try the product. "I've been enjoying this fantastic NEW breakfast all week," she wrote.
But Imperati lost the weight by carefully monitoring her meals, and she has learned a thing or two about nutrition. Breaking out a kitchen scale and a calculator, she determined the peach apple tarts that seemed too good to be true were just that.
When Starbucks eventually updated calorie information on the item, the calorie total more than doubled, weighing in at 280 calories.
"I'm surprised New York City hadn't factored in some sort of verification process for the nutritional content that would be posted as a result of the new regulation," Imperati said. "Until there is some accountability, consumers will need to carefully consider the information that is presented to them."
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On retail strips all over the city, skyrocketing rents are forcing food retailers out. Instead of groceries, boutiques, banks and drug chains have set up shop.
This alarming decline in supermarkets has reduced options for healthy nutritional choices, a recent New York Times article warned. In place of grocery stores, consumers often have to rely on fast food outlets that offer few healthy choices, or other retail outlets like chain-operated drug stores that sell a limited stock of packaged foods.
Facing high rates of diabetes and obesity in low-income neighborhoods, the Department of City Planning has offered proposals to stem the decline in food stores. The city's health department has already recommended measures such as pushcarts for produce, aid to small grocers, and requirements that fast food outlets post calorie information. But can the city's land use planning agency help reverse the trend and expand food choices to consumers?
The Department of City Planning has now taken up the challenge posed by one of the city's most intractable health crises, which has produced a diabetes and obesity epidemic. An estimated 700,000 New Yorkers suffer from diabetes, and childhood obesity rates are alarming, with 23 percent of black and 31 percent of Hispanic elementary school children estimated as obese.
The City Planning food store study, done in cooperation with the health department and Economic Development Corp., shows that 57 out of 59 community districts in the city fail to meet the department's standard of 30,000 square feet of food retail space per 10,000 population. The planners developed a Supermarket Need Index and, using it, found that the pattern of need is clearly concentrated in northern Manhattan, the south Bronx, and central Brooklyn. These neighborhoods have a total population of 3 million, almost 40 percent of the city's people. The study cites the public benefits that supermarkets bring to neighborhoods as well as barriers confronting food retailers.
In light of the magnitude of the problem, the recommendations in the study appear a bit anemic, failing to take an in-depth look at the many ways land use planning can make a difference. For example, the report calls for removing the limit of 10,000 square feet for food retailers in light manufacturing districts. City Planning, though, proposed this in the 1990s only to see it defeated in the face of widespread concern that the measure would lead to a rush of big box stores and threaten the viability of industrial areas. After the department's recent spate of rezonings throughout the city, there is less industrially zoned land near residential neighborhoods than there was then, but still no guarantee that rezoning them would bring anything but big boxes and condominiums.
The study proposes including retailing opportunities in future rezoning efforts. Simply rezoning an area for retail, though, does not mean that the stores will come. The study also endorses a proposal by the Economic Development Corp. to use city-owned land to promote new retail uses and backs the work of the Mayor's Food Policy Task Force. However the report does not propose new and perhaps more promising strategies that city planners are using in many other cities.
However, urban planners have found that the real solutions have to be crafted at the neighborhood level, and not just city-wide. Also, supermarkets are not the only solution to the problems of food access. And commercial retailing on any scale can be a part of the problem if retailers fail to carry healthy choices.
Community organizations and advocates of healthy food are already creating alternatives to the flagging supermarket sector, all of which could be supported by the city's land use and zoning policies. In the last year alone, new food cooperatives have sprung up in the south Bronx and central Brooklyn. Green markets and community gardens provide fresh produce. Community-assisted agriculture - where residents arrange with producers to get fresh farm products - is growing (according to Just Food there are more than 40 such projects in the city). And some non-profit food kitchens partner with community gardens and local producers.
All of these efforts are on a relatively small scale, but city policy can support them and bring them up to a scale so they can have a greater impact on the food crisis. This, though, would require some aggressive community-based and citywide land use planning.
In other cities, schools set aside small plots of land for growing vegetables and herbs. The amounts produced are minimal, but the gardens are a powerful tool for educating kids about food and nutrition. While New York City is opening up schoolyards for recreation, an initiative spurred by the mayor's long-range sustainability plan, some land could also be used for food production. This also would open up opportunities to introduce composting and other ecological practices to students, teachers and administrators.
The Department of City Planning's approach to food access looks only at the quantitative part of a strategy that has to include both quantity and quality. Increasing the amount of land available for retail space and supermarkets is only a part of the solution. More - and larger -- retail space in no way guarantees that food will be more accessible to those who need it the most, especially if retail rents are so high that only gourmet stores will survive. While supermarkets may offer more choices, they too can become high-end boutiques. Unless the strategy of opening up more land is accompanied by one that increases the demand for and access to low-cost healthy food, all the stores in the universe won't solve the problem.
Any policy must also insure long-term access. Unless it can be sustained through periods of real estate peaks and troughs, we will not have community food security - an internationally recognized concept used to plan for food that, if incorporated into New York City's food and land use policies, would help overcome the epidemics of diabetes and obesity.
There is one regulatory measure the city (and state) could use to stop the rising rate of decline in food retailing space in neighborhoods - commercial rent control. It is the perpetual bane of the city's powerful real estate industry, but is probably the only thing that will work to stem the loss of neighborhood retailers. It would allow the city to stabilize local retail strips where local stores are being pushed out in favor of chains that improve neither the range of consumer choice nor access to healthy products.
Tom Angotti is Professor of Urban Affairs and Planning at Hunter College, City University of NY, editor of Progressive Planning Magazine, and a member of the Task Force on Community-based Planning.Â
Six months ago, Prison Health Services -- the private, for profit company that manages health care in 10 of the city's 11 jails -- got a raise.
The Tennessee-based corporation, which has a virtual monopoly on health care in prisons nationwide, saw its payments increase by more than 10 percent -- a figure that has been adjusted for inflation -- since its previous agreement with the city in 2005.
That boost, which city officials attribute to cost of living increases, came despite the company's failure to meet at least 15 percent of its performance standards set by the city's Department of Health and Mental Hygiene between 2006 and 2008. On several occasions, the company did not meet a quarter of its performance indicators, which include completing intake histories and conducting physical exams, according to quarterly review reports from the department.
Because of this poor performance, the city has fined Prison Health Services for the past three years in a row.
While many advocates agree that care on Rikers Island has improved since it was run by a private hospital a decade ago, others say the city's jails still do not provide quality health care. Whether it's a lack of leadership or the challenges of dealing with a transient, often mentally ill, population, quality health care is as isolated from Rikers' inmates as the island itself.
Prison Health Services just kicked off its third, three-year contract with the city's Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. The price tag: $366 million.
As part of that contract, the health department issues quarterly performance review reports, evaluating whether the corporation has substantially met or failed to meet certain health care criteria. The reviews measure the quality of women's health, asthma care, confidentiality, testing for sexually transmitted diseases and more.
The measurements are gleaned from a review of 9,000 records per quarter, said Louise Cohen, deputy commissioner for health care access and improvement at the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. These records assess Prison Health's performance through 40 indicators, some of which are analyzed by a random sample.
In its last two years of service to the city, the time leading up to the contract renewal, Prison Health Services has continuously failed to meet a handful of city standards -- some more than others. In six of the eight quarters from January 2006 through December 2007, Prison Health Services did not properly follow up on certain HIV treatment testing. Some inmates, Cohen said, received follow-up tests several days late.
For five consecutive quarters, until mid-2007, the corporation did not meet standards for taking inmates' histories when they arrive at Rikers, skipping over parts of the mandatory paperwork, said Cohen. On average, Prison Health complied with the department's intake standards about 61 percent of the time during that period.
Now that the department is rolling out an electronic intake system, Cohen said, that process should run more smoothly. The Bloomberg administration requires that every inmate receive an intake physical within 24 hours of arrival on the island . According to the Mayor's Management Report, more than 89,000 intake exams were given in fiscal year 2007 -- that out of approximately 100,000 annual admissions.
For three out of four quarters in 2007, Prison Health also did not meet standards for follow-up care for inmates in segregated housing. Cohen said this was due to security concerns in one facility that may have skewed the entire performance results.
Due to all of the unmet criteria in 2007, Prison Health was fined $244,000. In 2006, the corporation was fined $299,500 and $249,500 in 2005.
While some areas of care are problematic, the company has met criteria in others. For instance, women's care has received nearly a 100 percent compliance rate over the entire two-year period. This care includes cancer screenings, prenatal care and sonograms.
Prison Health has also consistently tested for sexually transmitted diseases during an inmate's admission to Rikers.
"We're more concerned than anyone in making sure that we have the right quality of care," said Cohen. "We are actually meeting the community standard in many cases and exceeding it in a number of others."
A spokesperson for Prison Health Services refused to comment for this story and referred any comment to the city's health department.
For all of 2007, according to city health records, Prison Health Services met the standards for documenting suicide watches approximately 95 percent of the time.
But, that doesn't mean there were no suicides on Rikers Island. There were three, according to the mayor's management report.
This is one indication of how performance standards can miss measuring actually quality of care. Prison Health may receive a mark of 100 percent in some areas where advocates continue to receive complaints about poor health care.
Dale Wilker, a staff attorney at the Prisoners' Rights Project at the Legal Aid Society, said by far the most serious complaint from prisoners who have serious ailments, from HIV to heart conditions or asthma, is failing to have continuous access to needed medication.
"The biggest complaints I have heard, not in terms of volume but in terms of seriousness, was medicine people are taking and are required to take are interrupted and not started for a period of time," said Wilker. "Since the city got away from using teaching hospitals and went to providers that are in some way to make money and to serve their stockholders, complaints have become much more frequent and much more serious."
According to city records, Prison Health Services has met criteria outlined by the health department for several standards that deal with medication or prescription delivery, including long-term medication for asthmatics, the availability of medication within 24 hours after it is prescribed and the timeliness of medication orders for mental health patients.
This is not the only area where anecdotal accounts of care contradict measurements by the city. The most frequent complaint of inmates, according to some advocates, is waiting times to get into one of the island's many clinics.
Inmates have told the Gotham Gazette they have waited for hours before receiving care, regardless of their condition. On the other hand, the mayor's management report contends for the past three years inmates have waited about a half hour to receive care.
Some say the department's quality performance reviews, while worthwhile, are not an accurate reflection of the quality of care on Rikers nor do they measure what is most important in providing correctional health care.
It is difficult to determine whether the compliance record is a result of one box unchecked on an intake form, some say, or more serious failures by Prison Health Services.
"For our purposes, in terms of our role, they are not the best items to be using to assess (whether) the things that we care about are being met," said Hildy Simmons, the chair of the city's Board of Corrections, which oversees the city's correctional system.
Considering Prison Health Services' contract was just renewed, advocates contend the system must not be so atrocious that Rikers needs another provider -- as was true during the days of St. Barnabas in the early 1990s.
"That suggests to me that things weren't bad enough for the department of health to not want to contract with them at all, or maybe they couldn't find another provider," said Wilker, who would like to see the city contract with university-affiliated hospitals.
This is partially true. When the city requested contract bids for some of its independent borough facilities last year, no local, nonprofit hospital bid on it, said city health officials. Like any other city contract, Prison Health Services contract goes through a procurement procedure. This three-year contract was a renewal and was not put out to bid, said Cohen.
"We think PHS is performing adequately," said Cohen. "We would love to have a local, nonprofit partner. One just isn't stepping up to the plate."
The department does review all of its performance criteria on an annual basis to determine, which indicators to concentrate on. And, said Cohen, in any area the corporation fails, it is required to come up with a correction action plan, which the department continues to monitor. Â
This month I noticed a new ad painted boldly on the side of a building in the midtown neighborhood where I work. In two-foot-high lettering, it states "On Day Three of an Emergency, What Would Your Family's Food Pyramid Look Like?" The accompanying picture depicts a pyramid-shaped pile of shelf-stable products: salsa, a sardine tin, a box of what might be crackers or pasta. The point that the Ad Council and the Department of Homeland Security seems to be making is this: stock up now because, otherwise, after just three days, there won't be much left to eat.
If most New Yorkers do not see food security as a palpable threat, it's because we haven't really thought about it. But our sources of food and our unique geography combine to make our food supply vulnerable to severe disruptions that would affect all of us, regardless of neighborhood or socioeconomic status.
Most of us (with the exception of Bronx residents) are island dwellers. All of us rely on a few major transportation arteries and access points to supply us with goods. As our food system becomes more global, the region from which New York City draws its food supply -- our foodshed -- grows larger and more diffuse. In turn, we grow more dependent on shipping, fuel, and clean natural resources abroad. It's a complicated web with many policies, subsidies, and business relationships holding it in place. If something should damage this fragile network, New Yorkers would learn quickly how little surplus we have.
The solution is simple. To ensure that the long-term food needs of the City of New York can be met, more of our food needs to be produced locally, both around the five boroughs and within them. With sufficient political will and support, our more than 600 community gardens, four major urban farms and numerous smaller ones, and miles of rooftops, could produce tons of food within the city limits.
During World War II, families were encouraged to grow their own food and produced up to 40 percent of all the vegetables consumed nationally. This spark can be rekindled by encouraging planting of fruit trees, making room for food production in school yards, public parks, and plazas, converting vacant lots to gardens, and creating incentives for rooftop vegetable production. Already New Yorkers are demanding and consuming more locally grown food than they have in decades.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg's PlaNYC does not address the connection between sustainability and food. Here and there we got a glimpse of what would be possible: The plan prescribes increased access to urban green space, the clean up and reclamation of 1,700 polluted acres, and planting trees to defray carbon dioxide emissions, but it makes no direct reference to providing food for a city of 9 million people and sets out no plan for doing so.
Many things could be done. As PlaNYC recognizes, urban greenspace has innumerable environmental benefits – cooling the city, cleaning the air, providing places for people to exercise or get together. PlaNYC includes many provisions for increasing the amount of green space in New York City. It could incorporate and create incentives for cultivating food into many of these existing plans.
In addition, to help ensure that in the long term New York City will have a safe, nutritious, sustainable supply of food, a number of barriers need to be removed. To reach New York's most direct and profitable markets, local farmers must overcome tremendous hurdles. They face long commutes, hours of traffic and the expenses of tickets and tolls. All of this adds up to a substantial cost of doing business and takes valuable time and energy away from the actual work of farming.
Farmland around the city is rapidly and irrevocably vanishing beneath bulldozers and subdivisions. To ensure that farming remains a viable use of land at the edge of metropolitan area and keep local farmers in business, the city should adopt policies and use its municipal procurement guidelines.
A number of other major cities have adopted formal plans to increase the sustainability of their food supplies. In San Francisco and Toronto, the city plans include food sustainability in their vision and concrete goals. The American Planning Association has identified food as a core component to sustainable city planning. In response to the omissions in PlaNYC, several NYC nonprofit groups are working together to develop and adopt a sustainability plan focused on food growing, distribution and access.
Food is a vital piece of our sustainability puzzle. What is available, how it is grown and who gets it will all play pivotal roles in the long-term prosperity of our city. If we want a healthy NYC in 2030, we need to start planting for the future today.
Jacquie Berger is the executive director of Just Food, an organization that makes fresh locally grown food available and accessible to all New Yorkers by connecting rural farmers, urban gardeners, and NYC residents.
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Though the City Council's budget scandalremains at center stage in City Hall, the legislative process has continued on.
Over the past month, more than a dozen bills have been introduced on the council floor, from fighting asthma triggers to overturning the New York Police Department's parade rules.
Here is a sample of legislation you may have missed.
New York City is known as having one of the highest asthma rates among children in the country. It is the number one cause for the hospitalization of children under 14. A study by the city's Department of Health and Mental Hygiene in 2000 found kids in New York City were twice as likely to be hospitalized for asthma compared to children nationwide.
While many attribute this staggering rate to an urban environment full of pollution and congestion, there are other culprits, like mice, cockroaches and mold, some city officials said. To nab these allergens, Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum and Councilmember Rosie Mendez introduced legislation (Intro 750) that requires owners of buildings with multiple units to immediately remove allergens if the building is occupied by an individual with respiratory issues. These allergens would include mold, fungi and pests.
"These problems have serious health consequences and our bill will force landlords and inspectors to take them seriously," said Gotbaum in a prepared statement. "There has never been a consistent or appropriate standard for dealing with mold and pest infestations in New York City, and that needs to change.”
Some mold infestations are violations of Department of Housing Preservation and Development's regulations, but there currently is no protocol to deal with most infestations and remediation. The bill, city officials said in a prepared statement, would require a landlord take immediate action.
Under the legislation, landlords would be required to inspect a unit that is occupied with an asthmatic person at least once a year. If landlords do not comply, the could be subject to six month imprisonment or a $500 fine.
The legislation can also apply to apartment units where non-asthmatic residents live, depending on the size of the infestation.
The New York Police Department's parade permit process has come under serious scrutiny ever since the Republican National Convention in 2004, where hundreds of protesters were arrested and dozens of lawsuits followed.
Last year the police department required any group to apply for a parade permit if they were a demonstration comprised of more than 50 people. Since then, community groups and city officials have railed against the department, calling the policy a violation of the first amendment.
In response two pieces of legislation were introduced recently, one by Councilmember Charles Barron, the other by (Intro 740) Mendez (Intro 743).
Barron's bill ensures the police department does not deny permits based on race or ideology, and it also requires the department employ the “least restrictive” measures to ensure the safety of the public.
Mendez’s bill would overhaul the department’s permitting process and overturn a department policy that requires of more than 50 to apply for a permit. The bill, called the “First Amendment Assembly Act," would exempt demonstrations that are an immediate response to an event from the permit process. It would also not require groups of less than 100 to apply for a permit.
The rules were drafted from a Washington D.C. policy that reportedly reduced tensions between police and protestors.
Earlier this year, the Bloomberg administration decided to crackdown on civil servant parking permits by 20 percent. The move came after a New York Post report that found out 129 government agencies had qualified to receive the parking perk.
As a follow up, Councilmember Tony Avella introduced legislation (Intro 744) that would require the city create a public record of every permit on its website. There are some exceptions, according to the bill, including those who are victims of domestic violence.
Councilmember Mendez introduced legislation (Intro 749) that would require the Department of Buildings make all of its records available online. The bill would require any record be put online after July 2008.
Councilmember Maria Baez introduced legislation (Intro 739) that would put a moratorium on the use of artificial turf with crumb rubber. Crumb rubber, which is made from recycled tires, can have high concentrations of lead, according to some reports. Â
What do old mattresses, BASE jumping and meat from cloned animals all have in common? Some members of the City Council want to regulate them.
In February, City Council members introduced a plethora of legislation, from banning BASE jumping to requiring labels on meat from cloned animals. Some of the bills merely make a statement, while others could eventually become law.
Here is a smattering of proposals introduced at City Hall last month.
After years of study, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved consumption of meat and milk from cloned cattle, swine and goats in January, making way for genetically altered burgers and Petri-dish grow bacon in supermarkets across the nation. Though the agency said cloned meat is safe and no different from more conventional food, consumer advocates raised concerns and fears.
In response, Councilmember Gale Brewer introduced legislation (Intro 706) that requires both retailers and wholesalers to label cloned meat within the city limits. Brewer's office contends the measure strengthens consumer awareness and allows individual New Yorkers to make their own educated decision.
The councilmember told The New York Sun that some residents could have ethical concerns with consuming cloned meat and therefore have a right to know what they're eating.
"I don't have any health concerns that I'm knowledgeable about, but just like any other product that we purchase, we want to know what they are," Brewer told The Sun.
The bill, so far, has some support from the Consumers Union. According to the a national poll conducted by the group, 89 percent of consumers would support labels on cloned meat and milk and 69 percent were concerned about consuming meat or milk from cloned animals. Similar legislation has been propsoed in California, even though Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed an identical - or shall we say cloned - bill last year.
They jump from building to building and creep through the crevices of your mattress. Bed bugs are back and Councilmember Helen Sears wants to exterminate them.
Sears introduced legislation (Intro 719) last month that requires used mattresses be clearly labeled as such and put in a plastic bag when thrown out. While the Queens councilmember recognizes that the legislation will not eradicate the city's so-called epidemic, Sears said it is an attempt to control and reduce the parasitic population.
"The fact is they are harmless, but they are grotesque," said Sears. "I would think that each council member would recognize the seriousness of this issue and if we can do anything to reduce it."
According to the legislation, the prevalence of bed bugs - which initially diminished with the use of pesticides - has grown since the late 1990s. Extremely difficult to eradicate, the bugs reproduce quickly and can hide in mattress cracks for months before reemerging to feed on human blood.
Sears said by forcing retailers to provide mattress bags and mandating their use when a mattress is discarded, the bed bugs can be contained and reduced. Sears called the bill a "no-brainer" and said the next step would be a hearing.
If passed, the bill would impose a $250 fine.
A state appeals court may have reinstated a reckless endangerment charge for a former television host who attempted to parachute off the Empire State Building, but Councilmember Peter Vallone Jr. would like to guarantee that no one else attempts the feat.
Under legislation (Intro 721) introduced last month, anyone who jumps or climbs - or even attempts to jump or climb - from a building or bridge more than 25 feet high would get more than an adrenalin rush. They could be subject to a $1,000 fine and possibly one year in jail. The bill targets bungee jumpers, parachuters or BASE jumpers.
Vallone's office argues the thrill-seeking activity could endanger the public. The film or television industry would remain unaffected, they contend, because the bill allows for anyone to jump or climb who has permission from the property owner.
Forget the environment or gas prices as an incentive to purchase a Toyota Prius or other hybrid car. Councilmember Hiram Monserrate hopes to give hybrid vehicle owners free parking too.
Monserrate introduced legislation last month (Intro 716) that would give hybrid owners a free parking permit for one year after buying a new vehicle. The permits would be transferable between owners, but would not be valid for vehicles more than a year old.
Legislation (Intro 709) introduced by Councilmember Bill de Blasio would require all commercial bicyclists to wear reflective vests. The bill would apply to anyone biking for deliveries for any business.
Under legislation (Intro 710) introduced by Councilmember Daniel Garodnick, any company entering into a contract with the city for more than $100,000 would have to reveal their labor practices.
The bill applies to contracts with foreign manufacturers, such as contracts for equipment made overseas. A manufacturer, if the bill is approved, would have to disclose its wage and hour practices as well as its health and safety practices.
Councilmember Diana Reyna introduced legislation (Intro 704) that requires operators of private transfer stations - where the city's waste is collected and transferred - prevent odor and leaks from affecting the adjacent community. It also mandates that all containers be transferred from the site by barge or rail.
Reyna represents Williamsburg, which has been saddled with much of the city's waste for years. According to her office, the bill is meant to more evenly distribute the city's garbage burden - which is also a pillar of the Bloomberg administration's solid waste management plan, approved in 2006. (For more on how the city manages its garbage, play our Garbage Game here.)
The legislation also sets up community advisory boards to oversee the operation of transfer stations. Â
With a Big Mac checking in at 540 calories and a medium order of fries at 380, healthy fast food may seem like the ultimate oxymoron. But that has not kept New York City officials from trying to regulate consumption of fast food chicken, fries and tacos for some 18 years. Their efforts, though, have had only mixed success.
In 1990, City Council first started debating plans that would require fast food outlets, which today make up about 10 percent of the city's approximately 20,000 restaurants, to post nutrition facts. A series of almost identical bills flickered in and out of City Hall until 1998, when the subject was finally dropped.
Mounting concern over the so-called "obesity epidemic," prompted city officials to take another look at New York's Taco Bells, McDonald's and KFCs. In December 2006, members of the Board of Health voted to force some fast food restaurants and restaurant chains to provide calorie counts on their menus. The board also banned the use of transfats, which have been found to raise cholesterol and increase a person's risk for heart disease, in every New York City restaurant from Burger King to Bouley. This decision followed a Food and Drug Administration rule introduced in January 2006, requiring food manufacturers to include information about transfat content on labels.
There was some grumbling over the transfat ban. A representative of the Heart Association, for example, wondered whether it would force restaurants to substitute other equally unhealthy substances, and some restaurant owners expressed fear that moving away from the artificial cooking oil could raise costs and reduce flavor.
Despite such concerns, the health department has reported widespread compliance with its rule. The health department found that 94 percent of the restaurants it inspected in the first three months of the ban had stopped using transfats for frying or as spreads. (The restaurants have until July 1, 2008 to stop using the fats in baked goods or to fry dough or cake batter.) "Despite claims to the contrary, New York City restaurants have shown that it's easy to get artificial transfats out of spreads and fry oils," health commissioner Thomas Frieden said in September.
"We removed all transfats in 2007 and the products are still high quality and taste great," said Starbucks spokeswoman Tara Darrow.
Efforts to persuade fast food restaurants to post calorie content, though, have proved more difficult. The Board of Health's December 2006 order only applies to restaurants that already provided the calorie counts on Web sites or in some other public place. It would have covered about 10 percent of the city's restaurants, mainly large chains with standardized menu offerings.
In June 2007, the New York State Restaurant Association sued the Board of Health to block the rule. The group said the mandatory posting infringed on the businesses' First Amendment rights, because it would have forced restaurant operators to say something against their will. The trade group said that restaurants that had previously provided their nutrition information in a brochure or on a Web site were being unfairly punished by having to list their calorie counts on menus and wall posters, since the restaurants that never offered that information were absolved of the requirement. The association also claimed that the law violated the Food and Drug Administration's 1990 Nutrition Labeling and Education Act, which specifically exempted restaurants from having to label their food with nutrition facts. Hearing the arguments, Judge Richard Holwell of U.S. District Court in Manhattan threw out the law in September 2007.
This January, pushed on by Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Health Commissioner Thomas Frieden, the Board of Health voted for another, slightly modified version of the calorie-listing law. It would require every fast food and chain restaurant -- not just ones that already offer calorie counts -- to list calories as prominently as prices by March 31, 2008. The New York State Restaurant Association sued again, arguing the revised rule still violates the restaurants' freedom of speech and is preempted by federal requirements.
In a phone interview, Rick Sampson, president and chief executive officer of the Restaurant Association, questioned the efficacy of providing calorie content. "For the last 17 years," he said, "the FDA has required every packaged food to list nutrition info right on the box, but still, obesity is at an all-time high."
To counter that, Sampson called for more public education about healthy eating habits aimed at children and their parents. "The restaurants have sat down with the commissioner about this, but he will not listen," Sampson said. "We would like to make even more nutrition information available, like the amount of sodium in the food, but that won't fit on a menu board and the commissioner will accept nothing but posting calories on a menu board," he said.
The health department, though, argues that it is the restaurant association that is being intransigent. "We had hoped that the restaurants would work with us to address these pressing concerns of obesity and diabetes," said Sabrina Baronberg, deputy director for physical activity and nutrition. "Unfortunately, it seems they'd rather go to court than put calorie information where their customers can use it and see it.
She believes labeling will work. "When people have access to calorie information, they use it," Baronberg said. About three quarters of consumers say they look at calorie information on packaged foods in supermarkets, and about half say that nutrition information affects what they choose to buy."
Healthy or not, millions of New Yorkers eat fast food. And so, the health department and industry critics say, restaurants bear some responsibility for the obesity epidemic. "Studies show that eating out contributes to obesity and people are eating out more often," said Margo Wootan, director of nutrition policy at the Center for Science in the Public Interest. "Americans are getting about one third of their calories from eating out. We've gotten used to having nutrition labels on our packaged foods, and Americans want this information when eating out."
According to Wootan, posting the calories online, on hidden posters near the bathrooms or on the under-side of tray liners, as many restaurants do, are not helpful. "You don't see Burger King listing their prices over by the restroom," she said. "And if people have time to go home, log on to the Internet and study a Web site before they go out to eat, they'd just stay home and cook dinner."
And so the battle rages on. Will New Yorkers improve their health and change their eating habits as a result of the rule?
Baronberg sees a huge impact. "We think that this regulation could reduce the number of people who suffer from obesity by 150,000 over the next five years, preventing more than 30,000 cases of diabetes," she said.
Others, such as Morgan Downey, executive vice president of the Obesity Society, are more cautious. "Definitive scientific studies are not available" on whether posting calorie content "will reduce or lessen the prevalence or impact of obesity," Downey said. "Nonetheless, the Obesity Society believes that more information on the caloric content of restaurant servings, not less, is in the interests of consumers."
With a Big Mac checking in at 540 calories and a medium order of fries at 380, healthy fast food may seem like the ultimate oxymoron. But that has not kept New York City officials from trying to regulate consumption of fast food chicken, fries and tacos for some 18 years. Their efforts, though, have had only mixed success.
In 1990, City Council first started debating plans that would require fast food outlets, which today make up about 10 percent of the city's approximately 20,000 restaurants, to post nutrition facts. A series of almost identical bills flickered in and out of City Hall until 1998, when the subject was finally dropped.
Mounting concern over the so-called "obesity epidemic," prompted city officials to take another look at New York's Taco Bells, McDonald's and KFCs. In December 2006, members of the Board of Health voted to force some fast food restaurants and restaurant chains to provide calorie counts on their menus. The board also banned the use of transfats, which have been found to raise cholesterol and increase a person's risk for heart disease, in every New York City restaurant from Burger King to Bouley. This decision followed a Food and Drug Administration rule introduced in January 2006, requiring food manufacturers to include information about transfat content on labels.
There was some grumbling over the transfat ban. A representative of the Heart Association, for example, wondered whether it would force restaurants to substitute other equally unhealthy substances, and some restaurant owners expressed fear that moving away from the artificial cooking oil could raise costs and reduce flavor.
Despite such concerns, the health department has reported widespread compliance with its rule. The health department found that 94 percent of the restaurants it inspected in the first three months of the ban had stopped using transfats for frying or as spreads. (The restaurants have until July 1, 2008 to stop using the fats in baked goods or to fry dough or cake batter.) "Despite claims to the contrary, New York City restaurants have shown that it's easy to get artificial transfats out of spreads and fry oils," health commissioner Thomas Frieden said in September.
"We removed all transfats in 2007 and the products are still high quality and taste great," said Starbucks spokeswoman Tara Darrow.
Efforts to persuade fast food restaurants to post calorie content, though, have proved more difficult. The Board of Health's December 2006 order only applies to restaurants that already provided the calorie counts on Web sites or in some other public place. It would have covered about 10 percent of the city's restaurants, mainly large chains with standardized menu offerings.
In June 2007, the New York State Restaurant Association sued the Board of Health to block the rule. The group said the mandatory posting infringed on the businesses' First Amendment rights, because it would have forced restaurant operators to say something against their will. The trade group said that restaurants that had previously provided their nutrition information in a brochure or on a Web site were being unfairly punished by having to list their calorie counts on menus and wall posters, since the restaurants that never offered that information were absolved of the requirement. The association also claimed that the law violated the Food and Drug Administration's 1990 Nutrition Labeling and Education Act, which specifically exempted restaurants from having to label their food with nutrition facts. Hearing the arguments, Judge Richard Holwell of U.S. District Court in Manhattan threw out the law in September 2007.
This January, pushed on by Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Health Commissioner Thomas Frieden, the Board of Health voted for another, slightly modified version of the calorie-listing law. It would require every fast food and chain restaurant -- not just ones that already offer calorie counts -- to list calories as prominently as prices by March 31, 2008. The New York State Restaurant Association sued again, arguing the revised rule still violates the restaurants' freedom of speech and is preempted by federal requirements.
In a phone interview, Rick Sampson, president and chief executive officer of the Restaurant Association, questioned the efficacy of providing calorie content. "For the last 17 years," he said, "the FDA has required every packaged food to list nutrition info right on the box, but still, obesity is at an all-time high."
To counter that, Sampson called for more public education about healthy eating habits aimed at children and their parents. "The restaurants have sat down with the commissioner about this, but he will not listen," Sampson said. "We would like to make even more nutrition information available, like the amount of sodium in the food, but that won't fit on a menu board and the commissioner will accept nothing but posting calories on a menu board," he said.
The health department, though, argues that it is the restaurant association that is being intransigent. "We had hoped that the restaurants would work with us to address these pressing concerns of obesity and diabetes," said Sabrina Baronberg, deputy director for physical activity and nutrition. "Unfortunately, it seems they'd rather go to court than put calorie information where their customers can use it and see it.
She believes labeling will work. "When people have access to calorie information, they use it," Baronberg said. About three quarters of consumers say they look at calorie information on packaged foods in supermarkets, and about half say that nutrition information affects what they choose to buy."
Healthy or not, millions of New Yorkers eat fast food. And so, the health department and industry critics say, restaurants bear some responsibility for the obesity epidemic. "Studies show that eating out contributes to obesity and people are eating out more often," said Margo Wootan, director of nutrition policy at the Center for Science in the Public Interest. "Americans are getting about one third of their calories from eating out. We've gotten used to having nutrition labels on our packaged foods, and Americans want this information when eating out."
According to Wootan, posting the calories online, on hidden posters near the bathrooms or on the under-side of tray liners, as many restaurants do, are not helpful. "You don't see Burger King listing their prices over by the restroom," she said. "And if people have time to go home, log on to the Internet and study a Web site before they go out to eat, they'd just stay home and cook dinner."
And so the battle rages on. Will New Yorkers improve their health and change their eating habits as a result of the rule?
Baronberg sees a huge impact. "We think that this regulation could reduce the number of people who suffer from obesity by 150,000 over the next five years, preventing more than 30,000 cases of diabetes," she said.
Others, such as Morgan Downey, executive vice president of the Obesity Society, are more cautious. "Definitive scientific studies are not available" on whether posting calorie content "will reduce or lessen the prevalence or impact of obesity," Downey said. "Nonetheless, the Obesity Society believes that more information on the caloric content of restaurant servings, not less, is in the interests of consumers."
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At Harmony Variety Discount in East Harlem, the meat and cheese case is empty, but the beer refrigerators are packed. A sign outside the Lexington Avenue Bodega calls in customers for 99-cent, 24-ounce cans of Miller Lite and packs of Newports for $6.50.
For eight years, owner Mohammed Saleh has provided the low-income neighborhood with a place to grab a six-pack and cigarettes -- not fresh fruits or vegetables.
He tried to sell healthy foods for six months last year, but no one bought them.
"Nobody buys them," said Saleh of fruits, vegetables and even low-fat milk. "If you ordered healthier food, the store would lose money."
Saleh's second location on the Upper East Side, however, sells such healthy products successfully. Grocers on the Upper East Side may stock leafy lettuce and ripe grapes, but 20 blocks north, similar products are noticeably absent.
Residents of Harlem, Central Brooklyn and the South Bronx often have no choice but to shop at stores like Harmony Variety Discount, which fail to provide healthy options.
Supermarkets are few and far between - some city zip codes are without them entirely - leaving many residents scrounging for affordable meals at fast food restaurants, small grocers or bodegas. Instead of the Whole Foods or Associated Supermarkets found in more affluent areas, many residents in Harlem must rely on Popeye's or McDonald's - options that do not reinforce a healthy lifestyle.
In response, the Bloomberg administration in 2006 launched a healthy bodegas initiative in Harlem, the South Bronx and Central Brooklyn. Its goal: to make fruits, vegetables and low fat milk more accessible in an effort to stifle the epidemics of diabetes and obesity - diseases directly associated with diet.
Since the program began, the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene contends it has been a success. But does measuring the number of participating bodegas accurately measure whether fruits and vegetables are served at kitchen tables throughout the city?
In both Harlem and the northern and central sections of Brooklyn, bodegas are the main place to purchase food. According to a health department study released in 2007, two out of three food retailers in East and Central Harlem are bodegas in comparison to one in three food stores on the Upper East Side. In Bedford-Stuyvesant and Bushwick, approximately 80 percent of food stores are bodegas. Only 28 percent of those bodegas carry apples, oranges and bananas, according to a similar study on access to healthy foods in Brooklyn by the health department.
These neighborhoods are also more likely to be overrun by diseases that flourish among those with unhealthy eating habits. A resident of the South Bronx, for instance, is about six times more likely to suffer from diabetes than a resident of the city's more affluent neighborhoods.
Arguing that access can make all the difference, the Bloomberg administration launched the multi-faceted healthy bodega campaign, specifically aimed at getting low and reduced fat milk in bodegas in low-income neighborhoods alongside fruits and vegetables. Over the course of two years - the original deadline is this December - it hoped to cover 1,000 stores.
It tested several approaches, like selling sliced individual apples in bodegas, some with greater success than others. Overall, said advocates, the milk initiative seems to be having more of an impact than efforts to get produce in the stores, and the health department says it has reached its target to get storeowners committed to selling low fat milk. (So far, the fruits and vegetables program has also not been rolled out entirely - it should be out in full-force this spring.)
The department launched its fruit and vegetable pilot program last year at 60 locations, which, officials admit, was not entirely successful. The revamped full-fledged initiative will affect far fewer stores than some advocates initially expected. A health department official said about 450 bodegas will participate, all of which already sell some fruits or vegetables.
The cost of the initiative, according to the health department, is less than $300,000 annually, which is attributed entirely to staffing.
"We have seen more low-fat milk on their shelves," said Charmaine Ruddock, the project director of Bronx Health REACH, a community group that has launched its own healthy bodega program in the South Bronx. "There is an increase in awareness of eating healthier. The challenge, of course, is getting these healthy foods in there."
Few would argue against eating healthy foods and making them more accessible (Though some did so this week at City Hall - see related stories here and here.) The challenges the health department faces are not over its goals but on its ability to make them a reality and enforcement.
The campaign is not penalty oriented. So, said Sabrina Baronberg, the deputy director of the physical activity and nutrition program at the health department, enforcement is done by follow-up visits from health department officials and through a questionnaire.
Even if bodega owners do stand by their commitment, it's difficult to gauge whether demand will naturally follow supply.
"We know there is focused demand in the community," said Baronberg. "It's not true that people in these communities are not interested."
What is true, said some advocates, is participating has proved to be difficult for some owners. Some bodegas do not have adequate space for fresh produce, while others cannot afford to lose profits on a product whose shelf life is relatively short.
"Lets say you stock up on watermelons for Memorial Day and it rains," said Joel Berg, the executive director of the New York City Coalition Against Hunger. "If you're a small bodega, you're out."
In East Harlem, some storeowners echoed that sentiment. Some storeowners said they don't have the space to expand beyond candy, toilet paper and other grocery items. At Harmony Victory Discount, price is a deterrent to selling fruits and vegetables, which are more expensive than other types of food.
"Eating healthy is expensive," said Ali Saleh, the owner's brother. "People come in here with $3, and they still owe us a quarter."
Health department officials said they are exploring ways to help bodegas get loans so they can afford to either purchase fruits and vegetables or revamp their stores to make room for them. Those loans, though, will not necessarily make such food more affordable to their customers.
Many say it's still too early to tell whether the city's healthy bodega initiative is getting more residents of low-income neighborhoods to eat healthier. Either way, some said, it certainly can't hurt to try.
This program is just one of many in the administration's public health crusade, which advocates characterize as one of the most progressive in the country. While this particular initiative is no panacea, they say it is certainly positive.
"It certainly hasn't hurt, but it hasn't transformed bodegas citywide," said Berg.
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As children we learned that an apple a day keeps the doctor away, but we never questioned where that apple would come from or how much it might cost.
While some New Yorkers enjoy the "luxury" of a grocery store just down the block, many low-income families live far from any place to buy healthy, high-quality produce at affordable prices. Hundreds of thousands of New York City residents live in neighborhoods with no supermarket, no green grocer and no farmers market. Families must go to great lengths to purchase food outside their neighborhoods or make do with what corner bodegas supply -- largely canned and boxed goods.
No wonder the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene found that 12 percent of adults in some neighborhoods ate no fruits or vegetables on a daily basis. As one would expect, the existence of these "food deserts" throughout the city has a devastating impact on the health and waistlines of New Yorkers.
According to the health department, about 500,000 children citywide are obese and at risk of developing life threatening diseases - diabetes, heart disease, and high blood pressure - as adults. Life expectancy in some poor communities is eight years shorter than in wealthier neighborhoods, such as the Upper East Side or the West Village. While various factors lead to these problems, research has shown that a diet lacking fresh fruits and vegetables is among the major contributors.
To begin to address this public health crisis, children and families in all New York City neighborhoods must have access to fresh affordable produce. Poor, hard-working families across the city shouldn't have to tackle multiple subway lines, buses or cab fares after work or on the weekend in order to purchase high quality fruits and vegetables at prices they can afford. Rather, families everywhere - in Melrose, Harlem, Bedford-Stuyvesant, Bushwick, Jamaica, Corona and Willowbrook - need healthy food options, at reasonable prices, where they live.
Help is finally on the way. Thanks to Mayor Michael Bloomberg and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn's "Green Carts" initiative, families even in places without good grocery stores soon will be able to purchase affordable fresh fruit and vegetables conveniently, and on a regular basis, where they live.
The recently passed green cart legislation will create 1,000 new licenses for vendors to sell fruits and vegetables in neighborhoods that have high rates of obesity and diabetes, and where consumption of fresh produce is low.
While this may not be legislation that will change New York City's food landscape forever, it provides a new solution to the age-old problem of how to provide all neighborhoods - particularly those with a desperate need - access to healthy affordable food. The green carts initiative can be implemented quickly and will have a broad reach in the city's poorest communities.
The food industry is a powerful lobby, and it had engaged in an all-out fight to derail this legislation. Despite the fact that carts will operate where supermarkets and other fresh food outlets don't exist, the industry argued that the carts will create unfair competition. If only that were true -- there would have been no need for green carts.
Ideally, every neighborhood would have a grocery store or supermarket within walking distance of the majority of its residents. Supermarkets relieve a neighborhood's food deficit, anchor a community and provide good stable jobs. For decades, communities have been lamenting the lack of such stores - especially when other neighborhoods have lavish food outlets on every corner.
The city is studying how to lure supermarkets and green grocers back to our communities, and we're optimistic this will eventually mean more grocery stores where they are needed most. The increased presence of a once or twice-weekly greenmarket would also be a major improvement in neighborhoods lacking options.
But waiting for the perfect answer ignores the immediate healthy dangers these children and families across our city face. It would be the equivalent of arguing that until we have a perfect health care system, people should not seek treatment at all.
Our city's low-income children and families cannot afford to wait three, five or 10 years to get better access to fresh produce. While we hope for supermarkets and farmer's markets in the future, we need to be able to buy apples and bananas for snacks today, and green beans and salad greens for dinner tonight. Lives literally depend on it.
The green cart initiative addresses this real need - in real time.
We are looking forward to seeing these carts in neighborhoods all over the city, where for the first time in decades, hundreds of thousands of families will be able to conveniently buy fresh produce. And at the same time, we will continue to support the mayor and the City Council in their efforts to develop more supermarkets and farmer's markets and improve the capacity of existing grocers to sell fresh produce at prices New Yorkers can afford.
Jennifer March-Joly is executive director of Citizens' Committee for Children of New York, Inc.
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