Menu Control by Ordinance

 A Small Change With Big Implications

Slippery Slope

The City of Pueblo is considering an ordinance that would require restaurants to change the default beverage served with children’s meals to a “healthier” option such as water or milk. Parents could still request soda or sweetened drinks, and the city presents the proposal as a modest step to encourage better choices for kids. On the surface, that appears simple enough.

But the real issue is not the drink - it is the enforcement mechanism. Under the current concept, a restaurant’s food-service license could be put at risk if the business fails to comply. That means a restaurant could lose the legal ability to operate because it didn’t structure its menu the way the city prefers. When a food-service license is tied to menu content rather than food safety, Pueblo crosses a line that should not be crossed lightly.

License Enforcement Should Protect Safety, Not Preferences

Some supporters of the proposal have dismissed concerns by noting that “there are already a lot of ways to lose a food-service license.” That is true. Restaurants can be cited or shut down for unsafe temperatures, cross-contamination, poor sanitation, pest issues, or other conditions that pose real and immediate health risks. These rules protect the public from foodborne illness and dangerous practices.

But that is precisely why creating a new basis for license penalties - one unrelated to safety - is so concerning. Losing a license because of contaminated meat is appropriate. Losing a license because a menu defaults to chocolate milk instead of water is something entirely different.

A Shift in the Purpose of Food Licensing

Once the city begins using licensing power to enforce nutritional preferences rather than safety standards, it shifts the purpose of the license itself. No longer would a license certify that a restaurant stores, prepares, and handles food safely. Instead, it would become a tool governments can use to pressure businesses into promoting officially required food choices.

Today the issue is a drink. Tomorrow, it could be desserts. Once the city claims the authority to regulate default beverages, it becomes far easier for future councils to regulate cookies, fries, portion sizes, sodium levels, or entire categories of food in the name of public health.

A Precedent That Enables Expansion

This isn’t alarmism - it’s a straightforward observation about precedent. Laws do not stay confined to the intentions of the moment. Once the principle is established that “the government may dictate parts of your menu and punish you for noncompliance,” the barrier to expanding that authority becomes lower. What begins with a beverage rule can grow quietly into a broader system of menu control, all justified in the same way: “It’s for public health.”

Encouragement Is Reasonable; Coercion Is Not

None of this denies that children’s nutrition matters. Encouraging healthier choices is a legitimate public goal. But there is a crucial difference between encouragement and coercion. A city can educate, promote awareness, partner with local businesses, or create voluntary recognition programs - efforts that respect both public health aims and individual freedom.

Threatening the livelihood of a restaurant over a menu detail, however, goes well beyond encouragement. It forces compliance not because the food is unsafe, but because the city has decided what people ought to eat and drink.

The Wrong Tool for the Job

At a time when small restaurants are already struggling with thin margins, workforce shortages, and rising costs, adding the risk of license loss over menu formatting is not only excessive - it is fundamentally misaligned with the original purpose of food licensing. Food-service licenses exist to ensure the public is protected from actual harm. They were never meant to be used as leverage to enforce nutritional conformity.

The Decision Pueblo Must Make

The question Pueblo must confront is not whether water is healthier than soda. It is whether the city should exercise the power to shut down a lawful business over a disagreement about what the default drink on a kids’ menu should be. Once such power is granted, future leaders will not need to fight for it - they will simply inherit it.

If public health is the goal, Pueblo has many tools that do not involve threatening people’s livelihoods. But if the city adopts a model that punishes restaurants for menu content, it will open a door that may be difficult, if not impossible, to close. Today, it may be about a drink. 

Tomorrow, the entire menu could be subject to approval.

I’m relieved that this proposal was voted down, but I don’t believe the issue is settled. The advocates for measures like this often focus narrowly on the immediate intention and fail to recognize the broader implications. They may not see how policies framed as small, health-focused adjustments can open the door to far greater levels of government control in the future. My concern is not with promoting healthy choices - it's with the precedent that such regulatory overreach creates and the long-term consequences it could have for individual freedom, business autonomy, and responsible governance.