In This Section:
ICC Grows Plans For Certification Of Green-Building Officials
Doughnuts, Coffee Driving Drive-Through Angst
Kansas May Shift Inspections To Ag Department
Californians, Chicagoans Take Heart: You Can Still Get Foie Gras In Maryland
This issue's Economic Report Sponsor: Manitowoc Foodservice Group
Industry Report Sponsor: FHA2008
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ICC Grows Plans For Certification Of Green-Building Officials
The International Code Council is developing a certification program to ensure that code officials understand green building techniques and assure that sustainable buildings are safe. If you're green, the ICC is inviting your involvement.
Working with the National Association of Home Builders, the U.S. Green Building Council and others, ICC is creating an Inspector of Green Building Technologies certification exam. The exam will test code officials' knowledge of green building programs and rating systems like the USGBC's Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design program as well as the National Green Building Standard, which is now under joint development by ICC and NAHB. The test also will assess a candidate's understanding of the green aspects of codes in different categories such as the International Plumbing Code and International Energy Conservation Code.
The ICC is looking for green building experts to serve on its exam development committee. If you're interested in serving, go to www.iccsafe.org, or call 888/ICC-SAFE.
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Doughnuts, Coffee Driving Drive-Through Angst
You've heard it before—backlash against drive-through windows—but now, apparently, doughnuts and caffeine are adding fuel to the fire.
The number of proposed drive-through bans has been rising, and more than a few have been in response to rapidly-expanding Tim Hortons and its busy drive-throughs in both Canada and the United States. One case of dueling drive-through permit applications from Horton's and Dunkin' Donuts in Cheektowaga, N.Y., caused the city council there such concern about traffic backups that it imposed a drive-through moratorium in January.
Several communities in Canada are considering moratoriums on drive-through windows, and concern is spreading. Arguments against drive-throughs include the potential damage to the environment caused by lines of cars with idling engines, traffic congestion and danger to pedestrians. Jurisdictions across Canada, including North Vancouver, Edmonton and King's County, NS, as well as Toronto and several more in Ontario, are looking at bans or are studying environmental impact.
In response, Tim Hortons hired environmental engineering firm RWDI to study the issue. RWDI's study concluded that a drive-through serving 150 vehicles an hour emits greenhouse gases roughly equivalent to those from a single motorcycle operating at about 30 mph for an hour, according to Rachel Douglas, the chain's director of public affairs.
A few U.S. cities have drive-through bans—Santa Cruz, Calif., has had one since 1979—but the trend hasn't gathered much steam in the United States yet.
Moratoriums, of course, affect drive-throughs for all businesses such as pharmacies and banks as well as restaurants.
Kansas May Shift Inspections To Ag Department
A bill in the Kansas House may transfer responsibility for restaurant inspections from the health department to the agricultural department. The bill has already passed a Senate vote, and was scheduled for House committee hearings in mid-March.
The bill is part of an attempt to streamline and improve cost inefficiencies revealed in a 2003 audit of the system as it existed then. Inspection responsibilities for grocery stores, food processors and convenience stores were moved to the Department of Agriculture in '04, but restaurant inspections remained the province of the Department of Health and Environment.
The Kansas Public Health Association opposed transferring restaurant inspections in '04, saying the shift would be a conflict of interest, according to public-hearing records. Only five states let their agriculture departments handle inspection responsibilities. Twelve states split the responsibility as Kansas does now, and 30 states let health departments handle food safety programs.
Californians, Chicagoans Take Heart: You Can Still Get Foie Gras In Maryland
Legislators in Maryland have turned back an attempt by animal-rights activists to get a bill passed outlawing the sale and transport of foie gras. Two days after a Senate subcommittee hearing, a Senate sponsor of the bill said she had additional information about the foie gras process that had made her change her mind, and the House delegate who'd introduced the bill withdrew it.
Melvin Thompson, Maryland Restaurant Association v.p., led a delegation of interested parties on a tour of the Hudson Valley Foie Gras farm in Sullivan County, N.Y., prior to the hearing. "We saw nothing that would indicate that the care and feeding of the birds was not entirely consistent with generally accepted humane farming practices," he says.
The sale of the traditional French delicacy, made from the deliberately fattened livers of geese and ducks, has been banned in California since 2004 and in Chicago for the past two years. Only five countries in Europe still produce foie gras, along with only two farms in the United States.
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