The Pure Food Ordinance Trap
Tacoma women leading a campaign for food safety are blindsided by a missing provision in a new city ordinance.
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The Women's Pure Food Council yesterday petitioned the health officer and mayor to appoint a woman as food inspector under the new pure food ordinance, but when Dr. Sargentich investigated, he found that there was no provision in the ordinance for the appointment of an inspector at all. The women had been going on the assumption that the ordinance would make an inspector possible, but it does not. The health commissioner this evening thought the women had been tricked by some councilman eliminating the inspector provision, but Chairman Giblett of the health and hospital committee says no such provision was in the ordinance at all. It will be necessary now for the women to have the council pass a new ordinance providing for the inspector before one can be permanently fixed in the position.
“The women have been going on the supposition that the ordinance would make an inspector possible, but it does not.”
This early 20th-century advocacy highlights the ongoing struggle to codify public health protections. Today’s debates over Tacoma’s municipal ordinances—and the gap between political promises and legislative reality—echo the tactics used by the Women's Pure Food Council over a century ago.
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