Less than two days after endorsing a nascent plan to require Red Bank restaurants to list calorie totals for menu items, Mayor Pasquale Menna has withdrawn his support.
In a press release issued late Friday afternoon, Menna cited resistance by restaurateurs as the reason he no longer favors the idea.
Since Wednesday night, when he floated the calorie-count idea at a borough council session, Menna wrote,
I have heard from many of our food service establishments and
conferred with Rivercenter and the Restaurant working group. Their opinions are
important to me. The concept is a valid one but will be a problematic idea in the
context of the Red Bank restaurant model. Our dining establishments are unique.
The average Red Bank restaurant have menus that change every day and many
times a day since there is no standardization. Our restaurants are individualistic
and cater to the needs of the customer even if a matter is not on the menu. The
concept would be a costly burden on our businesses.
At the session, Councilman Mike DuPont said, “RiverCenter agreed to support an idea to enunciate calories associated with meals.” But executive director Nancy Adams, in a comment posted on redbankgreen‘s article about the move, said neither RiverCenter nor its member restaurants had discussed the idea.
“While health and wellness are certainly on the minds of Red Bank’s governing body, we know that they would first encourage healthy options (like we have) in our restaurants far before mandating anything,” she wrote.
Here’s the full text of Menna’s statement: menna calories 021513
