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The Prince George’s County Council passed legislation on Tuesday to encourage restaurants to provide healthy meal options in exchange for zero-interest loans and other financial help, part of an effort by the council to bring more food options to residents after County Executive Angela D. Alsobrooks didn’t fund the program during budget season.
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Passing with a vote of 9-0-1, with District 9 council member Sydney J. Harrison (D) abstaining, the Healthy Restaurants Program will be a voluntary initiative to which restaurants apply. Participation in the program would require offering a menu with at least 40 percent healthy food options and one or more plant-based meals. As an incentive, participating restaurants will receive zero-interest loans from the Economic Development Corp. and financial help from the county to pay for menus labeling healthy food options, along with other perks.
But funding for the program was not secured, leaving implementation of the plan in question. The bill’s lead sponsor, council vice chair and District 6 council member Wala Blegay (D), requested $250,000 from the county’s budget to fund the program, but Alsobrooks (D) denied that ask.
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The issue of how the program would be funded was heavily scrutinized by many county agency representatives at the meeting, many of whom questioned the program’s sustainability, likelihood of success and lack of specificity, mirroring some of Alsobrooks’s concerns.
Blegay said that she was disappointed that Alsobrooks did not approve funding for the program during this year’s budget season, but said that passing the bill is an important investment in the county. She added that the bill was a matter of changing the perception about what residents of Prince George’s want and diversifying options for a county whose population is majority non-White.
“We do not want to just eat greasy chicken,” she said, pointing to the number of fast-food chains and unhealthy takeout restaurants throughout the county. “We want the salads. We want the smoothies. We want the healthy, creative, plant-based meals. We eat them, and that there’s a market for them.”
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Alsobrooks’s administration said in a statement that it has made efforts to tackle some of the concerns that spurred the bill through the Healthy Corner Store Initiative and community gardens.
“We believe the legislation passed today is not the most effective way to address these issues and will not result in an increase in access to healthy foods,” the statement read. “We look forward to working with this Council to find programs and initiatives that will have a real impact on health disparities and food insecurities experienced by all Prince Georgians.”
Prince George’s is in the “second-worst” quartiles of counties in Maryland for fast-food restaurant density and is in the “worst” 25 percent of counties in the nation for the same category, according to 2016 data from the Prince George’s County Health Department. There were 779 fast-food restaurants in 2016 compared with 309 full-service restaurants that same year.
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That data is one of the reasons the county needs the legislation, Blegay and supporters said.
Heaven Jordano, program associate for the Prince George’s County Food Equity Council, told the council that her organization is in favor of the bill because of the county’s lead in poor health indicators, such as diabetes, hypertension and other ailments.
“In Prince George’s County, food swamps cluster in the inner Beltway in low-income communities of color,” she said. “If this bill is passed, Prince George’s County will become a leader in establishing incentives that create healthy restaurant food environments.”
Others in favor of the bill, including Duane and Tori King, co-founders of the health restaurant Fresh Green, also pointed to the poor health outcomes in the county, personal health battles and the need to travel outside of Prince George’s County to find healthy options.
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However, opponents of the bill such as Ebony Stocks, executive vice president for the Prince George’s County Economic Development Corp., called the program “well intended,” but added that it failed to recognize practicalities of running a business. Stocks said the effort could cause restaurants to maintain menu items that might not be profitable, leading to a less profitable business overall.
Leslie W. Graves, president and chief executive officer for Experience Prince George’s, the official destination marketing organization for the county, said that she supported the effort but not the bill as written, arguing that the legislation duplicates some of the efforts of her office and that the funding pool is questionable.
“If you’re focused on government money and the government changes its priorities — and … it will because it has to — you are now without a resource,” she said.
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Spirited discussion among council members followed testimonies, with some of the most heated words coming from District 7 council member Krystal Oriadha (D). Oriadha said she was “perplexed” by statements in opposition to the bill from government and quasi-government agencies, adding that it made her question their commitment to serving the needs of the community. She pointed to incentives for developers as examples of similar programs offered throughout the county.
“I’m hopeful that the administration actually expands it because $250,000 was all that we asked for — $250,000,” she said. “To say that we can’t afford that is just laughable and it’s a lie, and it’s not true because we can afford it. You just don’t want to.”
Council member Mel Franklin (D-At Large) suggested that a grant program could be a simpler solution.
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Harrison said he abstained from the vote because passing legislation with no clear funding is “bad practice.”
“I do support it from a principle perspective, but the funding thing just really drove me off because we can pass legislation, but if we don’t have funding, what good is the legislation,” he said. “I don’t want to create a false reality until we have that actual funding.”
Tuesday was the last day of council meetings until the council returns from recess in September.
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