Charities Hope Program Prompts Restaurants to Donate Leftovers

San Fernando Valley restaurants are not yet standing in line to give their leftover food to charities, despite a new law that removes liability for the businesses should someone become ill from the food.

But industry observers predict that enthusiasm for putting leftovers to use will increase later this month with the advent of a program called Second Helpings.

Under Second Helpings, the California Restaurant Assn. will act as a matchmaker for restaurants and charities, leaving them to iron out details of their exchange.

“In general, what we’ve heard from our members is this is a good idea--a way to be able to do something to help out without having a major burden put on them,” said Stanley Kyker, executive vice president of the California Restaurant Assn.

The so-called “Good Samaritan law,” which took effect Jan. 1, was sponsored by the restaurant association because large quantities of restaurant food were being thrown away. This was partly because of concerns about liability and the county’s strict interpretation of state health regulations.

Any restaurants and charities can negotiate to distribute leftovers on their own. But except for the handful that had previous arrangements, none of several contacted had plans to do so.

When a proposal for Second Helpings was mailed statewide last year to all 2,900 members of the restaurant association, who represent 9,000 food service businesses, the results were disappointing, said Alberta Hultman, assistant executive vice president. Only about 100 agreed to participate, she said. Of these, about a dozen were in Los Angeles County and only two were in the Valley.

Since then, one of the two Valley establishments, Polar Palace Frozen Yogurt in Van Nuys, has gone out of business. The other, the Calabasas Inn, plans to donate raw food such as bags of rice, coffee and fruit, which would be useful only to charities that have cooking facilities.

“We don’t have food left over that often, so it’s not something we could promise on a regular basis,” said Wally Hollenstein, owner of the 150-seat Calabasas Inn. “Besides, I’m not so much in favor of sending the poor what you have left. . . . They deserve fresh food too.”

Kyker said he was surprised by the small response, but a second brochure now being developed aims at educating restaurant owners and managers about the need for the program. As added incentive, the restaurant association is letting its members know they can claim tax deductions for the value of the donated food.

Kyker said Valley restaurants may join if they see the program working smoothly for other Los Angeles-area restaurants. The restaurant association would not release a complete list of the restaurants that tentatively signed up after the statewide mailing. Hultman said most are family-style restaurants, not fast-food or gourmet establishments.

Key Connection

“The key will be getting that connection between the agency and the restaurant operator so that it is convenient for the restaurateur,” Kyker said. “If it becomes too much of a burden for them so that it costs more, they aren’t going to want to continue, and others won’t want to join them.”

Some representatives of Valley charities were pessimistic about the likelihood of widespread participation.

“The thing is that in the Valley, there’s always been a strong feeling that there’s not a homeless problem out here,” said Vernon Windell, program coordinator for the Cornerstone, a Van Nuys mental health counseling center for the homeless. “Restaurateurs, if they see the problem, they see it as a problem for them--people poking in their dumpsters, stiffing them on the bill.”

But, Hultman said, she thinks that all restaurateurs became more aware of the destitute after Proposition 95, the Hunger and Homelessness Funding Initiative on November’s ballot, drew a 45% yes vote. Among other things, the proposition proposed fining restaurants for state Health Code violations, then using the fines to pay for food, shelter and job training for the homeless.

More Awareness

“I think they are much more aware of the issue, that we as individuals have to respond,” Hultman said, “and that we have to let people know what we’re doing.”

The amount of excess food in Los Angeles restaurants has not been measured, but people’s digging in restaurant dumpsters is testimony that edible food is wasted, said Michael Vasquez, director of the Hollywood Project for the homeless.

Before the August closure of Hollywood’s well-known Tick Tock restaurant, Vasquez said, he and his staff were allowed to come to the back door with plastic containers at 9 p.m., when the kitchen closed.

“We would get enough from the Tick Tock in one evening to feed about 50 people,” he said. “There would be whole turkey dinners, good quality soup and steamed vegetables. All of it still hot, coming right out of the kitchen. I sit back and imagine: When we got that much from just one restaurant, how many restaurants are throwing away at least that much?”

A telephone survey of major Valley charities--including the Salvation Army, the San Fernando Valley Community Mental Health Center and Valley Shelter--showed that most rarely receive restaurant leftovers.

Among the exceptions are Better Valley Services, a nonprofit housing agency in Van Nuys, where homeless people sometimes feast on steaks and other delicacies originally prepared for film crews by Movieland Caterers of Sepulveda.

A few miles away in Granada Hills, Robert Maxwell, the supervisor of the Index Street Group Home, stops at a Kentucky Fried Chicken franchise most Saturdays to pick up buckets of unsold chicken for the boys under his care. Other group homes have similar arrangements with the fast-food chicken chain.

Fifteen other charities, including the Union Rescue Mission, participate in a leftover food program of the Los Angeles Unified School District. Under that program, unserved school lunches began being passed on to the needy in December, 1987, when three charities, the first to join, signed waivers saying the school would not be held responsible if someone became ill from the food.

Valley restaurant managers defended their records, saying they occasionally give certificates for free dinners to favorite churches or charities. None contacted were aware of the new law, and none wanted to rush into a commitment with Second Helpings. In fact, many insisted that they do not have much leftover food anyway.

Little to Offer

“Nothing really is made up ahead of time, so there really isn’t that much left over,” said Pat Rosate, manager of the White Horse Inn in Northridge.

“This restaurant is a buffet, so we mostly use our own leftover food,” said John Alevras, manager of a Taste of Scandinavia Smorgasbord on Ventura Boulevard in Woodland Hills.

But Hultman of the restaurant association said that while a restaurant’s goal is to not generate much waste, “there are always those daily specials that are not that popular with the customers. . . . We want there to be no waste at all.”

A few charities also said they feared that handling leftovers would be cumbersome, particularly because the Second Helpings program gives them responsibility for picking up the food.

“Unfortunately we don’t have vehicles to go out and pick something up, so usually the staff uses their own vehicles,” said Darcy Scott, executive director of Better Valley Services. “If they had something left over in the middle of the day so that we could put it out like a buffet, sure, that would be great. But if they called in the middle of night, it would be awkward.”

Charities involved with the school district struggle with this problem, too. Some have solved it in part by not depending on the school food, using it only as a supplement to their regular meals, said Beth Louargand, a deputy administrator with the district.

Kyker said the restaurant association hopes to provide some transportation services through Food Partnership, a nonprofit organization that carries mostly non-perishable food donations to the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank. But, he said, even if Food Partnership agrees to help, he would not be able to promise delivery to all charities.

Welcome Relief

For the few Valley restaurants that have been willing to donate leftovers despite liability risks, the new law is welcome relief.

The owner of Movieland Caterers, Allan Stearns, said Better Valley Services and other charities with which the catering firm works assured him that he would not be held responsible if someone were to get sick after eating his food, “but we were always concerned about it.”

Anticipating the law, Collins Foods International, which owns 118 Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurants in Southern California, started offering local charities leftover chicken four months ago. Previously, an estimated 1,500 pieces a week were being wasted because the company is barred from selling cooked chicken that is more than 90 minutes old.

“People are going to get it out of the trash bins anyway, so it seems better to give it to them outright than see them out there digging for it,” said Gregory Reheis, director of administration for the Kentucky Fried Chicken branch of Collins Foods.

County Criticized

In the past, charities and some restaurant owners have criticized the Los Angeles County Department of Health for its strict interpretation of state laws governing transfer of cooked food, which included stringent standards for packaging, temperature control and record-keeping. They cited other metropolitan areas in the state where county officials are more lenient and food donations are more common.

But Arthur Tilzer, the department’s director for consumer protection, said the county’s stance has been prudent, not stingy. He blamed restaurants, not county rules, for the lack of a coordinated leftover food giveaway program.

“I don’t think there was really that much of a demand from the industry to participate in a redistribution program,” he said.

Under the new Good Samaritan law, state health regulations are circumvented when the charity agrees to take the food and along with it the responsibility for making sure it is safe to eat.

Tilzer said the county is working closely with Second Helpings to establish food handling guidelines and will conduct spot checks of restaurants and charities to make sure the food is being properly stored.