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Restaurants Would Have to Handle Customers with Food Allergies Under Md. Proposal
Crofton Patch ^ | March 18, 2014 | Deb Belt

Posted on 03/22/2014 8:39:25 PM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks

A new Maryland bill would let counties require each restaurant to have a staff member trained on food allergens, ready to advise customers. Is the measure needed?

County governments may soon have authority to make restaurants accommodate customers with food allergies.

A new bill would let counties require each restaurant to have a staff member trained on food allergens, ready to advise customers, reports WJLA TV. The bill would also require restaurants statewide to encourage customers to notify servers about their food allergies.

The Senate passed the measure 33-14 Monday evening. A similar bill is pending in a House committee.

Restaurants could post an advisory on the menu, asking customers with allergies to notify their servers. Or the server could ask before taking customers' orders, says CBS DC.

The Senate version, introduced by Sen. Jamie Raskin of Montgomery County, would not apply to service stations or vendors at carnivals and fairs.


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Government; News/Current Events; US: Maryland
KEYWORDS: foodallergies; freakstate; landofpeasantliving; nannystate; restaurants
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To: DBrow
Having someone get training in food allergies will put restaurants out of business?

It will make good tasting food for the vast majority almost out of reach. Your suggestions (above) may be do-able in the large, noisy chain restaurants that move 'em in and shove 'em out the instant customers have wolfed down their flash-frozen, microwaved burgers, steaks or battered fish. But overregulation like this, combined with the inevitable calorie-disclosure regulations soon to come, will absolutely suppress or destroy the ability to make a profit of sandwich shops, mom'n'pop diners, bakeries-with-tables and artisan chef's first restaurants.

In fact, the Food Network ought to sue the state of Maryland for even thinking of such a thing.

81 posted on 03/23/2014 8:25:22 AM PDT by Albion Wilde (“The commenters are plenty but the thinkers are few.” — Walid Shoebat)
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To: All

http://www.berkshireahec.org/page.php?PageID=2636&PageName=MA+Food+Allergen+Certification+Training

Here is the onerous training, it’s online, costs ten bucks, takes 30 minutes, and only one person needs the training. This is less training than bartenders need to have.

THIS is why all the restaurants in MA closed! (this was put into place because of the Bertucci wrongful death suit. If you put a line in your menu requiring people to say what allergies they have, and have one trained person, then it’s harder to sue).

Now if we could get rid of all the state-mandated sanitation laws, restaurant freedom and profit would increase by leaps and bounds!


82 posted on 03/23/2014 8:32:46 AM PDT by DBrow
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To: DBrow
how does the customer know that the restarant puts in a dish? The waitstaff has to be informed as to whats in a dish. Does the chicken pot pie have peas? If it’s not in the menu description, how does the customer know?

People whose allergies must be that fastidiously mitigated against constitute probably less than one percent of the population. I'm speaking as the parent who raised a child with food allergies. Yet muslims constitute more than one percent of the population in the U.S. Shall we then require all restaurants to install foot baths and prayer rooms, and whipping posts for women who do not wear the hijab or who show their ankles?

Tyranny of the minority is no better than tyranny of the majority. When we went to restaurants with our chlld, whose food allergies were severe enough to warrant "the shots" every few days, we asked a few questions, took his inhaler, and taught him to push any dangerous morsels aside.

83 posted on 03/23/2014 8:33:05 AM PDT by Albion Wilde (“The commenters are plenty but the thinkers are few.” — Walid Shoebat)
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To: Albion Wilde

“It will make good tasting food for the vast majority almost out of reach.”

How expensive and intensive is the Md required training? I could not find that out, maybe you did?


84 posted on 03/23/2014 8:33:58 AM PDT by DBrow
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To: DBrow
If you eat out and ask, is this spicy, and the waiter says “I don’t know”, would you order it?

Hell, no. What is this -- a trick question?

85 posted on 03/23/2014 8:37:40 AM PDT by Albion Wilde (“The commenters are plenty but the thinkers are few.” — Walid Shoebat)
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To: HiTech RedNeck
Why not let restaurants who want to take the trouble to be allergy friendly, be rewarded by patronage by the allergic?

You know, that is a good idea. Someone could conceivably make a business out of this kind of thing, including a frozen line for mass marketing. Unfortunately, in today's litigious society, a trash lawsuit would soon follow and put them out of business for not accomodating the one super-rare allergy that escaped their formula.

86 posted on 03/23/2014 8:40:56 AM PDT by Albion Wilde (“The commenters are plenty but the thinkers are few.” — Walid Shoebat)
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

http://phpa.dhmh.maryland.gov/OEHFP/OFPCHS/Shared%20Documents/FoodAllergiesEnglish_2014_8%205x11_format_030714.pdf

In addition to the $10 dollar training course, putting THIS poster up in the kitchen will drive any good restaurant right down the tubes!


87 posted on 03/23/2014 8:41:42 AM PDT by DBrow
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To: Albion Wilde

“People whose allergies must be that fastidiously mitigated against constitute probably less than one percent of the population.”

It’s about 8%.


88 posted on 03/23/2014 8:43:02 AM PDT by DBrow
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks
Little irks me more than some "fussy" diner at a public restaurant and their (mostly made up) "allergies." They act as though the entire world needs to cater to their peculiar sensitivities.

There are many foods I have an aversion (allergy) to but I never make a big deal about it at a restaurant. For example, I hate sour cream so when I get it as part of a dish, I just push it to the side and eat around it (other people I am dining with are welcome to scoop it up). Ditto for cole slaw, horseradish, sauerkraut and other smelly condiments that make me gag. No big deal, I just push all the undesirable stuff over to the side. I don't need to make big pronouncements to the waitstaff and demand that they prepare my dish special.

89 posted on 03/23/2014 8:43:09 AM PDT by SamAdams76
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To: DBrow
I want competent servers. Like I expect competent car mechanics.

Uh, servers get paid LESS than the minimum wage, and depend on tips to make up the difference. The average employee car mechanic makes $15 to $25 an hour, with master mechanics and repair-shop owners making more, sometimes much more.

90 posted on 03/23/2014 8:44:28 AM PDT by Albion Wilde (“The commenters are plenty but the thinkers are few.” — Walid Shoebat)
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To: sphinx; DBrow
If this leads to lawsuits, I suspect restaurants will end up having full recipes printed in a booklet that can be shown on request.

Thus ruining the lives of artisan chefs and preventing any gastronomic enjoyment by the vast majority. There'll be underground gourmet events, like Prohibition, only with food instead of liquor. Various government initiatives are already trying to shut down home gardening, or allowing farm family chilldren to work farm chores. Soon, dinner parties in one's own home will be required to provide "the pamphlet" -- full disclosure to your personal family members and guests before each meal. It is discrimination against Italian mothers! Where does it end?

If it cannot end in the voting booth (and in the permanently-Democrat state of Maryland, it cannot), then it must end in the logical extreme our constitution was written for.

There's a reason why God told Moses that covetousness is a sin. Those of us with allergies in our families must not let our envy of the allergy-free justify stealing their enjoyment of their food.

91 posted on 03/23/2014 8:58:14 AM PDT by Albion Wilde (“The commenters are plenty but the thinkers are few.” — Walid Shoebat)
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To: NativeSon
I spent a lot of time in organic chem labs and a few solvents, notiblably carbon tet, would ruin me for a day - felt like the top of head was being crushed while something was trying to escape.

That's very interesting. I had that feeling while being "twilight" anesthetized for a surgical procedure.

92 posted on 03/23/2014 9:03:36 AM PDT by Albion Wilde (“The commenters are plenty but the thinkers are few.” — Walid Shoebat)
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To: DBrow
Yes indeedy, and how does the customer know that the restarant puts in a dish? The waitstaff has to be informed as to whats in a dish. Does the chicken pot pie have peas? If it’s not in the menu description, how does the customer know?

I know someone who is allergic to parsley. Many restaurants get their soup pre-made. Nobody has a flippin' clue what's in it. She gave up eating out at all, it was too hard to find things she could eat.

I'm allergic to peppers and onions. You wouldn't believe how many times I've reacted to things that the server insisted didn't have pepper, "the cook just uses (fill in the blank) seasoning mix, not pepper!" Well, that seasoning mix has pepper in it!

Or worse, the ones who think it's their duty to prove to me that allergies don't exist, so they hide extra pepper and onions in my meal, and then get offended when I can't eat it.

I'm lucky, my allergies are fairly mild. I just get nasty stomach cramps and have to stay by a bathroom for 2 days.
93 posted on 03/23/2014 9:04:48 AM PDT by Ellendra ("Laws were most numerous when the Commonwealth was most corrupt." -Tacitus)
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To: Albion Wilde

Muslims can tell that their rogan josh does not contain a footwashing station. They can’t see if it has cashews, though.


94 posted on 03/23/2014 9:12:10 AM PDT by DBrow
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To: Albion Wilde

What does income inequality have to do with food allergies? lol


95 posted on 03/23/2014 9:13:41 AM PDT by DBrow
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To: DBrow
How expensive and intensive is the Md required training? I could not find that out, maybe you did?

It's not the cost of the training, it's the ruination of the business model, by shifting medical liability from the person with the allergy to exercise reasonable caution when eating out onto the restaurant provider; and the inevitable rise in lawsuits and insurance against lawsuits.

This is one reason your medical costs have kept rising, resulting in the current fascist "healthcare law." Without tort reform, lawyers kept suing and suing doctors and hospitals for unpredictable outcomes, defending consumers who drank, smoked and sat in front of the television and then sued over a bad medical outcome alongside persons with legitimate complaints -- but to whom juries awarded lifetime payouts far in excess of common sense.

As a result, malpractice insurance has become so expensive that doctors and hospitals and insurers kept raising their rates. Worse, the cost of malpractice insurance guarantees that docs who are near retirement age or who are mothers wishing to take a reduced schedule for a year or two cannot afford to do so, draining our nation of valuabe resources whose expensive educations and experience must go to waste because the business model has been destroyed by greedy lawsuits. Yet you don't see a word in the 2700-page, lawyer-friendly Unaffordable Care Act about tort reform.

When government do-gooding attempts to pass laws to prevent dried leaves without understanding that the roots need water, many mighty oaks are destroyed.

96 posted on 03/23/2014 9:16:47 AM PDT by Albion Wilde (“The commenters are plenty but the thinkers are few.” — Walid Shoebat)
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To: Albion Wilde

Tagline typography correction. Apologies. Lately, FR’s system has been having trouble with the keyboard option commands when some types of coding are copied and pasted. Hmm.


97 posted on 03/23/2014 9:20:49 AM PDT by Albion Wilde ("The commenters are plenty but the thinkers are few." -- Walid Shoebat)
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To: DBrow
It’s about 8%.

Debatable; nevertheless constituting a small minority seeking impose costs and burdens on the 100%.

98 posted on 03/23/2014 9:23:36 AM PDT by Albion Wilde ("The commenters are plenty but the thinkers are few." -- Walid Shoebat)
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To: SamAdams76
With the greatest respect, food that make you gag are taste preferences, not food allergies. Don't misunderstand; I'm against this particular overregulation. But some food allergies do exist and can make a small percentage of people very sick or even die.

That said, I don't believe the fact that there are such sufferers should be able to use the power of the state to dictate how a restaurant open to the GENERAL PUBLIC cooks a meal; only that a restaurant should not purposefully misrepresent the presence of allergens with intent to cause a medical crisis. It is the stuff of murder mysteries like CSI to suspect that a murderer may have fed his victim peanuts unaware; but it can happen.

99 posted on 03/23/2014 9:31:16 AM PDT by Albion Wilde ("The commenters are plenty but the thinkers are few." -- Walid Shoebat)
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To: DBrow; Tolerance Sucks Rocks
Muslims can tell that their rogan josh does not contain a footwashing station. They can’t see if it has cashews, though.

Oh, I did not realize that you are probaby working for the Maryland legislature or the Trial Lawyer's Association. My mistake. Over and out.

100 posted on 03/23/2014 9:35:48 AM PDT by Albion Wilde ("The commenters are plenty but the thinkers are few." -- Walid Shoebat)
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