The IE has its share of quirks, but here's one that's new to us: if you lease a restaurant space from the city, you're not allowed to sell $1 tacos. D. Bernstein of the Press-Enterprise writes:
The woman behind the counter said sorry, but she wasn't allowed to sell me just one taco. She pointed to the menu. The best she could offer was three tacos for $4.87. This, I later learned, may be an unwritten part of the city's homeless policy. Riverside leases the space to Tony's. "It's not in the language of my lease," said Lunch Box owner Teresa Andrawis, "but just to get in there I had to agree."
Agree to what? "They don't want dollar specials. They don't want McDonald's prices." Higher prices -- that three-taco minimum -- supposedly discourage the "undesirables."
Given that this publication is one of the leading proponents of $1 tacos, we must now qualify as undesirable to the City of Riverside. We hope they think long and hard about the implications of the official publication of the taco lifestyle avoiding their town...
