“Selling certain types of coffee could soon be illegal in Berkeley,” The Berkeley Daily Planet reports. The city is considering an initiative to ban the sale of all coffee that is not “fair trade, shade-grown or organic.”
Enforcing the ban “would take money out of the city’s budget to enforce, and I certainly don’t think it’s how I want to spend the taxpayer’s money regulating coffee drinkers,” says one city councilor. Another adds: “If we begin to regulate the many details of so many people’s lives we are either going to be a nanny government or big brother.”
The Organic Consumers Association-backed effort is just the latest percolation in the P.C. coffee movement. Mark Ritchie of the pro-“fair trade” Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy also runs for-profit Peace Coffee, which sells the type of beans Berkeley may force on consumers. The price: $9.50 per pound.
