Split Council Weighs Future of Drive-Throughs in Loma Linda

To ban or not to ban was the question Loma Linda City Councilman Stan Brauer presented to the council in regards to drive through establishments on Tuesday night.

After an hour-long discussion prompted by local opposition to a McDonald’s restaurant that a developer is proposing to bring into the city, Brauer himself chose to back off a decision to have staff study a ban.

Opponents recently told councilmembers they felt the chain has a bad reputation when it comes to its foods’ nutritional value and that its presence might reflect on a city with a Blue Zone designation – or a town or city in which residents live long, active healthy lives.

“This is in no way an attempt of legislating anybody’s code of conduct or eating habits,” Brauer told the council. “It’s more a vision for the city.”

The councilman told his colleagues, for the time being, he wanted to discuss the issue for a number of reasons. Among them, a comment from the author of the Blue Zone book, who made note of the fast food chains within the city. Mayor Pro Tem Ovidiu Popescu and Ron Daily were more receptive to studying the issue. Councilman Phil Dupper and Mayor Rhodes Rigsby were not in favor.

“I opposed marijuana dispensaries. I opposed liquor outlets and public tobacco consumption mainly because they had a spillover effect on non-partakers of these substances,” Rigsby said. “There are drunk drivers, there is second-hand smoke, there is second-hand marijuana (smoke.) I don’t personally believe that McDonalds has such spillover affect. I was struck by the comments of the author of the Blue Zone book. Sounds like he had a theory was to why Loma Linda is a Blue Zone and I think he got it partially right -- there are a lot of vegetarians around. But I think what hit him in the face when he arrived and took the exit of 10 Freeway is that we’re a Blue Zone despite fast food joints.”

The issue, however, is not completely dead. Councilmembers left room for discussion in the future.

But Brauer said he concluded they had yet to come to a consensus on the issue based on Tuesday's conversation.

“Until we have a clear consensus, I would join Councilman Dupper and the Mayor,” he said.

The McDonalds has been a hot topic since Terra Linda Commercial LLC proposed it several months ago. The developer is wants to build a business center on a 7.7-acre parcel in the area of Barton Road and Mountain View Avenue. McDonalds would be just one tenant.