This subject was the front page of my local paper this morning. It's been mentioned before here lately and it's becoming the hot topic for liberal feel-good types.
The basic premise is that census data is able to identify neighborhoods with high poverty rates and low car ownership rates, then look at supermarkets in those areas. Guess what Food Lion doesn't like to set up shop where they can't make money. So the libs now want to create incentives for markets to set up shop. Of course this will result in a whole new state or municipal agency to implement this.
I have a revenue-neutral solution for this and it takes care of another problem. You see here in North Carolina you can't open up a private store and sell distilled booze. Instead we have a state agency called ABC, Alcoholic Beverage Commission, that regulates every bottle that gets sold in the state. And, being a GovCo deal, is inefficient, expensive and serves the population poorly. For instance every shipment of booze has to go to a main warehouse in Raleigh where it is cataloged and then shipped to the local, county-run, ABC stores. Certain bottles get a stamp put on the bottom, and only those bottles can be delivered to establishments that serve alcohol, such as bars and restaurants. Of course these stamps cost money and bars have an incentive to go to a local store, or out-of-state, and buy booze, so ABC has an enforcement wing of booze cops that go to bars unannounced with a badge and gun and look at the bottoms of bottles.
My solution is to first eliminate the ABC system all together, apply a special tax on booze sold roughly equal to what the ABC mark-up is, and let private industry deal with distribution and tax collection. All the local ABC stores can then be turned into food stores, if they happen to be located in these food desert areas, or sold to the public. With the money saved GovCo can then build or rent food stores where they think they are needed and then lease them out to private enterprise at a discounted rate. In return these groups would have to sell basic food and necessities at the same prices available in the same county in non-desert areas. Private enterprise such al WalMart, Food Lion, Aldis, and perhaps even a co-op will run these stores better than GovCo could ever hope for.
Since poverty and obesity go hand-in-hand, absent from these stores will be junk and fattening foods.
The basic premise is that census data is able to identify neighborhoods with high poverty rates and low car ownership rates, then look at supermarkets in those areas. Guess what Food Lion doesn't like to set up shop where they can't make money. So the libs now want to create incentives for markets to set up shop. Of course this will result in a whole new state or municipal agency to implement this.
I have a revenue-neutral solution for this and it takes care of another problem. You see here in North Carolina you can't open up a private store and sell distilled booze. Instead we have a state agency called ABC, Alcoholic Beverage Commission, that regulates every bottle that gets sold in the state. And, being a GovCo deal, is inefficient, expensive and serves the population poorly. For instance every shipment of booze has to go to a main warehouse in Raleigh where it is cataloged and then shipped to the local, county-run, ABC stores. Certain bottles get a stamp put on the bottom, and only those bottles can be delivered to establishments that serve alcohol, such as bars and restaurants. Of course these stamps cost money and bars have an incentive to go to a local store, or out-of-state, and buy booze, so ABC has an enforcement wing of booze cops that go to bars unannounced with a badge and gun and look at the bottoms of bottles.
My solution is to first eliminate the ABC system all together, apply a special tax on booze sold roughly equal to what the ABC mark-up is, and let private industry deal with distribution and tax collection. All the local ABC stores can then be turned into food stores, if they happen to be located in these food desert areas, or sold to the public. With the money saved GovCo can then build or rent food stores where they think they are needed and then lease them out to private enterprise at a discounted rate. In return these groups would have to sell basic food and necessities at the same prices available in the same county in non-desert areas. Private enterprise such al WalMart, Food Lion, Aldis, and perhaps even a co-op will run these stores better than GovCo could ever hope for.
Since poverty and obesity go hand-in-hand, absent from these stores will be junk and fattening foods.
