National Restaurant Association Plans to Sue the City Over Salt Warnings

Tomorrow, chain restaurants with more than 15 locations will be required to add salt warnings next to the high-sodium dishes on their NYC menus. And today, the National Restaurant Association — a trade organization representing more than 380,000 businesses — announces its plan to sue the New York City Department of Health over this new regulation. The group's basic argument is that the city shouldn't apply a nutritional information rule to chain restaurants, only, and the powers that be shouldn't force restaurants to make costly upgrades to their operations. NRA spokesperson Christin Fernandez tells Politico New York:

As an Association, we advocated for a uniform national menu-labeling standard on behalf of the industry....We believe consumers should have the same access to nutritional information from Portland, ME to Portland, OR. Local mandates like the one the board of health put forth unravel that uniformity. They are also placing an overly onerous and costly burden on New York’s restaurants that are already grappling with rising operating costs under the drastic actions of Governor [Andrew] Cuomo’s wage board.

As you may recall, the NRA and other groups sued the city to block Mayor Bloomberg's soda ban, and that piece of legislation got rejected by the New York State Court of Appeals. Health department spokesperson Chris Miller notes: "We're confident that the courts, if there is a lawsuit, will uphold the Board's authority to pass this rule."