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Comment by Talyen42 | Hacker News Reader

> Two San Francisco supervisors introduced an ordinance last week that would forbid employee cafeterias in new corporate construction.

Yeah, we could use some more traffic and pollution from everyone driving 10 miles for lunch.

As a progressive liberal, california democrats confuse me all the time.

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This is not Scranton, Pennsylvania no one drives 10 miles for lunch in San Francisco, city is only 7 miles wide

You could drive diagonally across town. What if I work in SOMA and want to have lunch in Park Merced?

Hope you can get away with taking 3 hours for lunch

You eat in SOMA, I guess. I'm not familiar with San Fransisco, but is it an area with no restaurants or cafeterias?

Yes, there are plenty of restaurants in SOMA. Eating there is a much better plan than traveling the maximum distance while staying in San Francisco.

Not necessarily supporting this motion, but it would cause no one to drive to lunch. There are dozens of good options within a block or two of most tech companies in the city. It would probably cause an uptick in Uber Eats, Grubhub, Eat24 orders though.

In mid-market? There is no where near the capacity in local restaurants to support Uber/Twitter/etc dumping all their employees out. There is the Burger King that plays classical music I suppose...

Companies wouldn't be required to "[dump] all their employees out" at lunch. Plenty of people bring their own lunches to work every day, so it's incorrect to assume that every office-based employee would be simultaneously hitting the streets for food.

Now I'm not defending SF officials here, but c'mon. This is San Francisco we're talking about - there are restaurants aplenty within walking distance of most tech offices.

True, but Mountain View implemented the same ban for Facebook.

Again, the Mountain View ban is for a one particular location which has lot of restaurants in the complex. Search for The Village, Mountain View. There are a lot of things wrong with these bans but having to drive to restaurants in not one of them.

(no way in favor of the ban, I like my free lunch very much)

Yes. In the middle of a shopping area https://goo.gl/maps/5AC7tTfhNvs surrounded by lots of food choices with a Safeway, Trader Joe's, Milk Pail and Walmart all within a 3 minute walk!

If all cafeterias were immediately closed I imagine the lines would be insufferable.

I've seen a few comments in this thread from people who seem to be arguing that every employee who would otherwise get a free lunch at work would suddenly be flocking to the streets.

First, this doesn't eliminate existing cafeterias, it just bans new ones. Second, cafeterias exist for two reasons - pricing and convenience. If, as you hypothesize, cafeterias closed (which is not what's happening here) and everyone was forced to find other options, I would imagine that a good portion of these people would opt to bring their own lunch from home, for those same two reasons - pricing and convenience. After all, why spend 40 minutes in line for a $15 lunch when you can make a damn good one at home for ~$6 and eat it virtually whenever you'd like?

Disclaimer: I do not support the city's decision here, but I also don't think it's as big of a travesty as people are making it out to be.

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