Municipalities may restrict fast-food restaurants under zoning bylaws, the Québec Court of Appeal has ruled..Blacklock’s Reporter says the decision came in the case of a Montréal borough that sought to limit the number of drive-thru restaurants in the name of promoting healthy lifestyles..“Most of these establishments mainly offer food and beverages whose nutritional value is generally low and whose regular consumption contributes to increasing the risk of obesity and other health problems,” wrote Justice Frédéric Bachand..Councillors in Côte-des-Neiges-Notre-Dame-de-Grâce brought forward a “Healthy Neighbourhoods” land-use bylaw in 2016 that promoted “access to healthy food,” “presence of community gardens,” “increases in greening” and more farmers’ markets..The bylaw also restricted the licensing of fast-food restaurants, defined as eateries without table service..The lobby group, Restaurants for Canada, pushed back against the bylaw saying lifestyles and eating habits have “nothing to do with land-use planning.”.The Court of Appeal disagreed stating “the promotion of healthy lifestyles and the protection of the environment are considerations that municipalities are quite free to take into account when exercising their zoning power,” said Bachand..Municipal zoning often involves “a whole range of considerations including social, economic and political,” said the court..In the wake of the court ruling, numerous restaurants have been closed, including three Tim Hortons outlets, a McDonald’s restaurant and expansion plans for an A&W restaurant were scrapped..The borough that enforced the bylaw is home to two university campuses, Montréal and Concordia..In a 2017 Statistics Canada report, an estimated 34% of preschoolers were at risk of being overweight or obese..“It is an alarming number,” Dr. Tom Warshawski, chair of the Childhood Obesity Foundation, said in an earlier interview..“It bodes very poorly because the trajectory is for people to continue gaining weight as they get older.”.A 2015 Ministerial Mandate letter was submitted by cabinet proposing to ban fast-food advertising targeting children but was never passed by Parliament..Melanie Risdon is a reporter with the Western Standard.,.mrisdon@westernstandardonline.com
