Toys banned in some California fast food restaurants

(CNN) -- A California county on Tuesday became the first in the nation to ban toys from fast food kids' meals high in calories, fat, salt and sugar.

Santa Clara County supervisors voted 3-2 to ban the plastic goodies as promotions in meals with more than 485 calories.
County supervisor Ken Yeager said Tuesday that the ordinance "prevents restaurants from preying on children's love of toys to peddle high-calorie, high-fat, high-sodium kids' meals," and would help fight childhood obesity.
"This ordinance breaks the link between unhealthy food and prizes," Yeager said. "Under this ordinance, restaurants are still permitted to give out toys. This ordinance merely imposes very specific, common-sense nutrition standards for children's meals that are linked to these incentives."

The ordinance will ban restaurants from giving away toys with meals that have more than 485 calories, more than 600 milligrams of sodium, more than 35 percent of total calories from fat or more than 10 percent of calories from added sugar. It would also limit toy giveaways on single food items with more than 200 calories or more than 480 milligrams of sodium.
But the decision, which affects about a dozen fast food restaurants in unincorporated areas of Silicon Valley, has angered the California Restaurant Association, which fought the proposal with ads in local newspapers. One asks "Who Made Politicians the Toy Police?" and shows a child in handcuffs in front of a cop.
KGO: County bans kids' meal toys

The group commissioned a poll of local residents that found 80 percent didn't think the toy issue was an important one.
"From our perspective, we were echoing what our customers had to say. Obviously we felt that this proposal was excessive and I think purposely provocative," said Daniel Conway, the association's director of public affairs.
Conway said the association was disappointed local officials didn't come to them before creating the ordinance.
"We try to proactively engage with policy makers at the local level, the state level and the federal level," Conway said. "At the national level, our industry just played a critical role in passing a national menu labeling standard, so that now customers in many restaurants will be able to have in front of them the exact nutritional content of the various menu items."
Yeager said at a press conference Tuesday that he hopes the ordinance will spark other counties and states to pass similar legislation.

Restaurants will have a 90-day grace period beginning May 11 before the ordinance goes into effect.

We've all been there

From Gizmodo

Own a piece of history

From brianstoys, From packaging to catalogs, the vintage Kenner Star Wars line is known for its bright images and graphics. For the most part photo art, or photographic prints that have been hand-altered in some way, were the master pieces of art used to create the images seen in boxes and catalogs around the world. However, photo art required the use of original photography, for Kenner almost never used illustrations or drawings for their images.

The task of taking the photos that would ultimately be used to produce photo art or that would perhaps remain unaltered was given to an outside design firm. While Kenner would ultimately provide guidance and have the final say on approval, it was up to the photographer at the studio to provide the photos, under the guidance of the design firm.

The photographer in charge of virtually all vintage Star Wars photography work at the outside design firm used by Kenner was Kim Simmons. He was ultimately responsible for images that would be used for packaging, comps (or mock-ups), some publicity images, and some of the slide presentations. Fortunately, for Star Wars collectors and enthusiasts alike, Kim meticulously kept nearly all of his work that was not given to Kenner as final art pieces.

Now you can own a piece of history by ordering from our exclusive selection of limited edition prints based on Kim’s work. Each print is hand-numbered and will never be offered for sale again once the allocated quantity of each individual print size has been distributed. These are no ordinary prints either. They are printed on the highest quality Fuji archival photography paper with metallic ink, and have been created from high resolution drum scans of each original negative or transparency and are unparalleled in quality. Don’t pass up this once in a lifetime chance to purchase your very own piece of Star Wars history!

Order it here

Rumor Report: "Antique Force Detail" Chases The Vintage Collection?

From rebelscum, All of our "rebel spies" are working overtime today with the latest info sliced from the holonet. Keeping with the tradition of special "Ultimate Galactic Hunt" chase figures from recent years, we've gotten top-secret details of a special line of figures that collectors can track down when The Vintage Collection hits hard this summer.

Previous UGH chase variants have included silver versions of the mini-holograms from The Saga Collection in 2006, the gold coins from The 30th Anniversary Collection in 2007, and the "1st Day of Issue" sticker variants from The Legacy Collection in 2008.

Relying heavily on the nostalgia factor for the classic Vintage Star Wars line, this chase series features the modern-day action figure stylings, but now decked out with "Antique Force Detail"...a paint deco that is inspired by the classic color schemes of the Kenner toys.

In a year focused on collectors, longtime fans will no doubt fondly recall the toys from their youth as they view this special gallery, shown here for your viewing pleasure.

Check them all out, here