Seattle restaurant mocks fat lawsuits with sinful dessert
Sure, this seems silly, but there is a point to be made here as well. Raising awareness of obesity in this country is all well and good, but to drag the issue into court is a waste of time and money. Of course, sometimes the best way to fight silliness is with humor
SEATTLE -- In an attempt to make a law professor in the other Washington look silly, a popular restaurant here is requiring customers to sign a liability waiver before they eat a fat-by-design dessert called The Bulge.
The waiver, a semi-serious gimmick that might be the first of its kind in the United States, is displayed in poster-size dimensions near the front door of the 5 Spot, an eatery on Seattle's affluent Queen Anne Hill.
"I will not impose any of sort of obesity-related lawsuit against the 5 Spot or consider any similar type of frivolous legislation created by a hungry trial lawyer," the release says. After a diner signs it, a waiter hauls out a sugarcoated, deep-fried, ice cream-swaddled, caramel-drizzled, whipped-cream-anointed banana.
"We thought, 'What can we do to illustrate how stupid it is to make restaurants responsible for monitoring the eating habits of Americans?' " said Peter Levy, co-owner of the 5 Spot. "We came up with the most fattening and delicious dessert we could think of."
The lawyer being mocked by the fat banana is John F. Banzhaf III, a professor of public interest law at George Washington University Law School. He is a successful anti-tobacco litigator who recently turned his attention to America's obesity epidemic.
Banzhaf is trying to be amused by Seattle. "Obviously, it is a joke, and I have helped the restaurant publicize it," he said. "This, however, is not a funny subject."
Perhaps the subject isn't funny, but the restaurant has a good point. At some point, you move from being a health educator to being a health nazi. Banzhaf would appear to have one foot on each side of the fence. At what point do we recognize that as Americans we have choices, and that some of those choices might not always be "healthy"? Does that mean someone out there has the right to campaign for those choices to be taken away from us? Once we start down this slippery slope, where do we stop? Or DO we stop?? Why does something being "bad for us" make it bad? Have we lost our grip on common sense?
