The restaurant industry is quietly — and successfully — fighting back against the enactment of so-called Happy Meal bans, which forbid restaurants like McDonald’s to hand out toys with children’s meals that are high in calories.
Moving under the radar so stealthily that in some cases local politicians and anti-obesity activists missed it entirely, lobbyists in Florida and Arizona backed successful efforts to take away the power to enact such bans from cities and counties. In Nebraska, a proposed statewide Happy Meal ban died in February, even before its first legislative committee hearing.
“Somebody was working the committee,” said Nebraska state Sen. Bill Avery, who sponsored the proposed toy ban. “The bill was killed and indefinitely postponed without discussion.”