San Francisco Weighs Ban on Employee Cafeterias

Amen. San Francisco is ground zero for well-intentioned, but ultimately awful public policy. Often these policies further make whatever problem they're trying to solve worse, because it gives the illusion that they've actually done something about it.

I, as a 20 year SF resident, would much prefer Aaron Peskin do something about the feces and hypodermic needles before he worries about cafeterias.

> Ha! So one more perk that only existing, large, entrenched players can offer. A level playing field indeed.

Yup, this exemption makes this idea even worse.

> Does this include ordering a pizza to a war room or is it specific to a separate structure for day to day dining?

Per an article in Eater.com (https://www.eater.com/2018/7/23/17603424/facebook-mountain-v...):

> The rule — which was actually passed in 2014 — states that companies cannot routinely fund more than 50 percent of employees’ meals, but it can fully subsidize meals if they come from open-to-the-public restaurants.

So the occasional pizza-in-the-war-room would be fine, but establishing their own cafeteria inside their complex that provides free food would be forbidden.

This rule seems to allow them to routinely order-in from "open-to-the-public restaurants", however if none of the nearby restaurants offers food that is up to their standards - they're SOL.

This rule is bad for employers and bad for their employees.

There's no way you can get food catered from local restaurants that will match the quality of what Google cafes offer, especially health-wise: restaurants optimize for taste and cost, disregarding customer health as long as they don't serve outright poison.

It's no coincidence that Google spends billions on sourcing their own employee food, and its competitors follow suite.

The result would be that new offices in MTV won't be able to provide the same healthy food that Google has been offering for decades.

Here's an idea: San Francisco should ban restrooms in office buildings, so people will have to go out to urinate and defecate on the streets with the rest of us.

This ban is just a bunch of restaurants threatening city hall into some short sided vision of theirs.

Ban cafeterias and you'll just get more delivery services.

Funny how this ban won't affect the city hall cafeteria.