I think it is a great idea to support restaurant start ups that promote healthy living and eating. Although as far as carbon footprint, it is much better to be purchasing organic, grassfed beef from Alberta, than to ship tofu from China. Conventional meat certainly does not have any type of environmental benefit (from feedlot, to shipping, to antibiotic use), but a diet that requires other protein sources also has some adverse effects. A sustainable diet, that is as local as possible is ideal. I think that idea should be supported.

This is a great idea! Promoting a plant-based diet is a fantastic way to lower a persons carbon footprint drastically.

I would love to see more veg restaurants in this city. They are many veg-friendly restaurants, but it takes some travelling to find the strictly veg places. Personally, I live in the suburbs (Burnaby) and vegetarian/vegan restaurants are hard to come by. It would be great to have more options out this way so we don't all have to live in East Van/Kits.

The restaurants which are starting up in these areas are done so by people who have the ability to overcome market barriers to entry. Barriers which tend to force the same product with slight differentiation and exclude business which the market deems 'too radical'. It also excludes large groups of people who don't have the ability to overcome these barriers because they don't know the right people and can't get through the red tape, or because they can't secure funding. When I talk about giving economic incentives to these new businesses, what I'm really talking about a giving a fair chance to these marginalized products and people to compete in Vancouver's market.

If the companies already in place are worried about losing customers to competition, they'll learn pretty quickly to green up their menus so that clients have a reason to stay - which would also be a desirable effect. Generally speaking though, how likely is it that people who are going to these places to eat meat are going to start going to a vegan restaurant instead? There's probably not going to be a huge amount of shift but the choice is there for them, and the availability is there for the veggie community whom already exist and become tapped as a consumer base.

On another note, McDonalds is one of the top restaurants because it attained extremely artificially low prices by externalizing all its costs. Read any research done on market practices by McDonalds, check out the movie 'McLibel', get a copy of their nutritional breakdown the next time you order a happy meal. There is zero quality there, and the vast majority of their practices contribute to environmental, social, cultural and even economic breakdown on a global scale. Is that really the type of business we should be encouraging in Vancouver?

Tax Free, I think you're seriously deluding yourself if you're suggesting that McDonald's offers high quality food at reasonable prices. They offer incredibly low-quality, unsustainable, unhealthy food at incredibly low prices. Their prices explain their market share - period. And their prices are low because they've taken advantage of economies of scale and unethical business and farming practices that allow them to produce huge quantities of high-calorie food cheaply - to the detriment of the environment and the animals.

The health of the world would be seriously disadvantaged if McDonald's were the bar set for food vending, and so would the environment. Vegetarian diets - and available, ethically produced, environmentally sustainable vegetarian food - have the power to change the world. Animal-based food production is hugely harmful to the planet.

Lots of new restaurants start up in these areas without any economic incentives. Do you think these companies want more competition that get incentives to offer cut rate prices and drive them out of business.
McDonalds is one of the top restaurants around the world. Why? Could it be the high quality food at a reasonable price and creates jobs and opportunities for millions of people that include managers and ownership.

If you think Mcdonalds is healthy at all you need to check your facts. The point of this is to encourage growth in green industries and create jobs - which includes entertainment and dining. Economic incentives mitigating start-up costs of new restaurants in these areas would not only encourage investment in these enterprises, but also help to eliminate one of the barriers (finance) to breaking into green commercial business.

You should be paying more for eating healthy Veggie Food and leave a big tip. McDonalds has healthy veggie food and needs no subsidizing or tax breaks. If you give it to one you end up having to give to all.