They’re taking it to the streets in Toronto. The city, which has long confined its street food to hot dog and sausage carts, is on the brink of expanding to the wider culinary world. Last week, Toronto’s licensing and standards committee voted to overrule city officials and loosen proposed curbs on the operation of food…

Milwaukee is weighing whether to become Wisconsin’s first city to institute a restaurant grading system. If the proposed ordinance—which directs the city’s health department to set up a grading system—passes, Milwaukee would join several other major cities and states that have embraced posting inspection grades despite strong opposition from the restaurant industry. Much is up…

Louisiana, considered in many studies as the most obese state in the nation, is considering legislation that takes menu-labeling requirements a step further than those required under the 2010 Affordable Care Act. The ACA requires nutrition labeling of standard menu items at chain restaurants with 20 or more locations doing business under the same name.…

Maryland has gotten a little more focused on keeping restaurant customers with food allergies safe. A bill now pending approval in the state senate mandates that all commercial kitchens have allergy awareness training, and that foodservice operations must always have one employee on-premise who has completed a food allergen awareness training course and passed a…

Sixteen years after neighboring Los Angeles County began posting letter grades to indicate the outcome of restaurants’ health inspections, Orange County is considering whether it should update how it publicizes a restaurant’s status. But instead of shifting from its longtime orange decal system to the more distinctive and easy-to-spot letter grades found in many major…

The National Restaurant Association wants operators to go to Washington next month and “Tell Congress That America Works Here.” That’s the theme for the NRA’s 2014 Public Affairs Conference, April 29-30, in Washington, D.C. The association is focused on what it calls an unprecedented number of legislative challenges, from healthcare and taxes to minimum wage…

At least one province in Canada looks likely to follow the path American chains already are treading. Ontario could become the first province in Canada to mandate big chain restaurants, c-stores and grocery stores post calorie counts on all of their menus. The draft legislation would require establishments that sell dine-in meals to display the…

Last month’s fatal carbon-monoxide leak in a Long Island restaurant has prompted a push by city and state lawmakers to make carbon-monoxide detectors mandatory in foodservice operations. A Legal Sea Foods restaurant manager was killed and 27 others were sickened in the carbon-monoxide leak on Feb. 22. Investigators say a faulty flue pipe in the…

The gloves are off, or they will be if a California legislator has his way. The state’s new law prohibiting bare-hand contact with ready-to-eat foods is under siege, thanks to a Sacramento assemblyman’s proposed repeal, which changes the state’s health code from “minimizing” to “prohibiting” bare-hand contact with food.  “It’s not about whether there are…

California lawmakers want to turn up the heat on thieves who steal restaurants’ used kitchen grease, a hot commodity in the biofuel industry. Assembly Bill 1566—aimed at curbing the rise in kitchen-grease theft by giving law enforcement the tools needed to stop the criminals—was introduced Jan. 30. Existing state law already requires licensed renderers to…