NYC operators: Posting alcoholic beverages' calorie counts anything but neat

Nation's Restaurant News,  Feb 25, 2008  by Elissa Elan

• E-mail
• Print
• Link

NEW YORK -- As chain operators here grapple with the logistics of posting calorie counts of menu items by March 31, they also are confronting an unforeseen complication of the city's new law--how best to disclose that data on lists offering wines, beers and cocktails.

The menu-labeling rule, which was adopted in a unanimous vote by the city's Board of Health in January, requires all restaurant chains with 15 outlets anywhere to post disclose the calories of all items, including beverages, on menus, menu boards or food tags at their New York locations. While alcoholic beverages were not singled out in the rule, neither were they excluded, city officials said.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

"The rule covers all menu items and does not exclude alcoholic beverages," said Gabriel Taus sig, the city's attorney. "It doesn't talk about any particular type of food item, it talks about all items on the menu."

All spirits, wine and mixed drinks fall under the mandate's requirements, Taussig said.

Operators in the Seattle area will face even stricter hurdles when a King County law goes into effect Aug. 1 requiring chains that have at least 10 locations anywhere and annual sales of at least $1 million to post calorie data, as well as information on trans-fat, saturated-fat, carbohydrates and sodium content on menus and menu boards. As in New York, alcoholic beverages are included in the county's law.

"Alcoholic beverages are being treated like any other beverages under the requirement, so they have to have their calorie content listed," said Dr. Lynn Silvers, assistant health commissioner for the New York Board of Health. "This regulation is aimed at protecting consumers. If alcoholic beverages contribute to caloric intake, [consumers] should be aware how much."

Sarah Markdt, a spokeswoman with the health department, said the regulation focused on chain restaurants because "they have very standardized menus, preparations and portion sizes that make it very easy and feasible for them to list calorie information."

Foodservice industry members, nonetheless, claim they were caught off guard by the inclusion of alcoholic beverages.

"This is just getting out of hand, it really is," said Rick Sampson, president and chief executive of the New York State Restaurant Association. "When we looked at the proposal and ran it by counsel, nothing specifically said anything about alcoholic beverages. Whose interpretation this is is beyond us, but it opens up a whole other set of problems we are trying to get clarification on."

Part of the misunderstanding may stem from the menu-labeling rule's history. An earlier version of the mandate, which was set to go into effect last summer, was struck down last year by a federal judge as discriminatory because it applied only to restaurants that already disclosed calorie information on websites or brochures, namely, fast-food outlets where alcoholic beverages are not available.

Sampson, whose organization was instrumental in striking down the city's earlier menu-labeling rule, expected to return to court Feb. 21 to challenge the current menu-labeling mandate. He mused, however, that if the court upholds the new rule, it would hit high-end steakhouse operators the hardest.

"What do you do with a wine list?" he asked. "Let's talk about Morton's and Ruth's Chris. I don't know how they're going to do it. How will they standardize a glass of red wine? You know, every year a bottle of wine changes. Nobody thinks these things through. They've opened a whole other set of issues for the restaurant industry to deal with.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

"We're now getting calls from operators asking what to do. Do you go back to your distributor or wholesaler or manufacturer of wine? Who's going to analyze it and who's going to pay for that? Can you imagine the cost of having to open a bottle of each wine to measure the caloric content? When wine ages are there more calories in it? Who the hell knows? This is an area no one has looked into, and this information is supposed to be ready by March 31."

At Chicago-based Morton's Restaurant Group Inc., Roger Drake, vice president of communications, said the company "heard this piece about alcoholic beverages, but we're still learning information about it."

"There are so many moving parts, and we're in the process of fact finding right now," he said. "We're going to comply; we just need to know what to do. Like other New York City restaurants, we're still learning what the implications of these new postings are ... and where the postings are to be properly positioned in our restaurants so that we will be in full compliance."

Addressing the concern and confusion of restaurateurs surrounding the calorie postings of wine in particular, assistant health commissioner Silvers said the department would follow U.S. Food and Drug Administration rounding rules, which accept a measurement rounded off to the nearest 10.