And I guess the business of Chicago is stifling big business. Big business provides the most jobs, and the most sales tax revenue. (In Illinois, a portion of the sales tax revenue reverts back to the municipality where the sale was made.)
Alderman Joe "No Foie Gras for Me" Moore sponsored a bill that will mandate that the largest store chains, "big boxes" such as Wal-Mart, Target, and Home Depot pay a higher hourly wage than other stores.
"Big Box" Target is rethinking opening new store in Chicago, as Crain's Chicago Business reports:
Target Corp. is halting plans for new stores in Chicago in response to a proposed city law that would set minimum wage and benefit levels for employees of big-box retailers.
The decision by the Minneapolis-based discount chain represents a setback for at least two high-profile retail projects in the city that were to be anchored by a Target, one on the Wilson Yard site in Uptown and another next to Interstate 57 in Morgan Park. Target told the developers of both projects last week that it won’t open stores if the law passes.
If Target pulls out, "we’d be at ground zero," says Arturo Sneider, a partner at California-based Primestor Development Inc., which is building the 443,000-square-foot Morgan Park project. "I don't even want to think about it."
Morgan Park (the proposed store is on the poorer eastern end of the neighborhood) and Uptown are low income areas lacking in jobs and decent places to shop.
Then there is trans fat. Trans fat is bad for you. I recommend you eat very little of the stuff. But I believe the consumer should be the arbiter if trans fat should pass through its lips, not the government.
Three weeks ago, Alderman Ed Burke proposed that Chicago ban trans fat from all restaurants in the city.
Now Burke is narrowing his focus, to the big fast food chains. From this morning's Chicago Sun-Times:
The Illinois Restaurant Association had complained that the original version would have been a costly burden for "Mom and Pop and ethnic" establishments.
"They use a limited amount of partially hydrogenated cooking oil. They cannot afford the more expensive oil," restaurant association President Colleen McShane told the Chicago Sun-Times on the day the all-inclusive trans-fat ban was introduced.
Now, most Chicago restaurants -- already facing bans on smoking and foie gras -- would be off the hook. Only places like McDonald's, Burger King and Kentucky Fried Chicken would be saddled with any added cost.
Of course, that may mean fewer of these establishments will set up shop in Chicago.
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