A great city's people forced to stop drinking swill? (Berkeley coffee ordinance)

San Francisco Chronicle ^ | 06/21/2002 | Charles Burress

[Pokey78]

Berkeley -- Berkeley, a place passionate about coffee and progressive politics, could become the only city in the nation to ban coffee not grown with strict protections for workers and the environment.

The proposed ban -- contained in an initiative crafted by a lawyer one year out of law school -- has gathered enough valid signatures to qualify for the November ballot, City Clerk Sherry Kelly announced Thursday.

[Dog Gone]

Completely unconstitutional. No question about that.

I would love to volunteer to be the first person arrested for violating this ordinance, because City of Berkeley vs Dog Gone would be a nice education for these morons when they read the court decision.

[thinktwice]

Personally, I'd worry more about the Berkeley City water supply than the coffee going into it.

Anybody that's seen the inside workings of a water treatment plant -- where the treated waste gets dumped into a local lake or river -- knows what I mean.

[maximus@Nashville]

The problem with government regulation is there is no presumption of innocence. You must prove you are complying, rather than the converse of evidence of wrong-doing before investigation.

Were I Starbucks, or the other coffee suppliers targeted, (notice bagged coffee was exempted, apparently they do not care if Folgers or Maxwell House complies) I would take a lesson from Home Depot. Rather than bear the costs of Government regulation as a Federal supplier, Home Depot refuses to sell to the Federal government. Let the coffee shops close up in Berkley and forget about it.

[m1911]

"When you look at seat-belt laws, that was shocking -- people freaked out," he said. "But now people accept it as a matter of course."

DING DING DING
Todays lesson from slippery slope 101

[steve50]

Isn't democracy wonderful. Will they allow stores' to sell unPC coffee, maybe authorize home searches for smugglers.

[Dakmar]

I'm surprised Clinton didn't set up a Politically Correct Enforcement Agency. If the other one ever gets elected you can bet she will.

[Drango]

There is ZERO chance I'm gonna buy anything in Berkeley...

BOYCOTT BERKELEY

[E Rocc]

"It's kind of crazy, typical Berkeley politics," said Robert Fulmer, president of Royal Coffee, based in Emeryville and one of the nation's top importers of fair-trade, organic and shade-grown coffee.

"I personally think something like this tends to do more harm than good," he said. "Trying to force something down someone's throat like that just builds resentment."

A lesson that all nanny staters should have to write 1,000 times on a blackboard somewhere.

-Eric

[Bernard Marx]

That would be an interesting case D.G. but didn't I read somewhere that Berkeley's City motto is: "By any means necessary?" I imagine that applies to judges, too.

I think anything that deprives Berkeley radicals from caffeine, a stimulant, is probably a good idea. Maybe a soporific along the lines of Soma might be a better alternative.

[EggsAckley]

And now that the restaurants are FORCED to purchase from the "correct" purveyors, those purveyors can now cut back on their quality control, cut corners, and increase their profits.

This experiment in social engineering will backfire on them.

[Freebird Forever]

Berkeley, a place passionate about coffee and progressive politics, could become the only city in the nation to ban coffee not grown with strict protections for workers and the environment.

"I think that it's probably only in Berkeley that it could occur, but I think it's a wonderful idea. . . . It would be a nice emblem of the way America should behave in the global economy."

I can envision Madison WI following suit before the end of the summer.

[drypowder]

To be fair to their own reasoning the people of Berkeley should also be promoting a ban of a more serious issue, banning any and all goods made in China that's produced under slave labor. Please forgive me for using the words fair, reason and Berkeley in the same sentence.

[Still Thinking]

Young compared the proposal to laws requiring seat belts or banning leaded gasoline. "When you look at seat-belt laws, that was shocking -- people freaked out," he said. "But now people accept it as a matter of course."

Sounds like the perfect argument AGAINST this law.

[steve50]

She's coming. God help us

[tophat9000]

Well this highlight a problem with some of the argument seen here for less federal and more local government control …

Here is a case of a nutty and intrusive local law

...

But do you ask or want the federal or state government to tell the local they can’t restrict your coffee?

Sometimes the state rights types seem to miss the point that state or local government can be just and intrusive and dictatorial as Federal government.(Just in theory easier to control because there smaller.)

Federal, state or local…......

the problem is not the who doing it.....its the what they assume they can do.

[PoppingSmoke]

"It would require all cups of coffee sold in the city to be "fair trade," organic or "shade-grown." It would not apply to beans or ground coffee sold in bags, however. Violators would be guilty of a misdemeanor and could face $100 fines and six months in jail."

Anyone know where the dang asteroid that missed us a few days ago went?

[TYVets]

Shade-grown or bird-friendly coffee is grown on traditional coffee plantations under the canopy of forest trees, where more than 150 species of migratory birds live.

PC coffee is grown under 150 species of birds!

I think I will stay with my middle of the field grown coffee

[MikalM]

A great city's people forced to stop drinking swill?

Note the headline, which is the typical CHRON spin. Non-shade-grown, non-organic, non-approved-by-the-PC-police java is "swill" -- cheap joe more commonly consumed by Contra Costa suburban rubes, than by the Chez-Panisse-haunting leftist Berkeley foodies who are forever dreaming up new and different ways to run the lives of us less enlightened peasantry.

"Let them eat Rainforest Crunch!"

[CARepubGal]

I am with you there! now what is non PC coffee? I WILL be drinking exploited worker coffee with great pride and delight! :-)