Anthony Mazur, past president and founding father of Manufacturers’ Agents for the Food Service Industry, passed away Jan. 4. He was 97.Mazur, of A.E. Mazur Associates, Philadelphia, was a tireless supporter of MAFSI since becoming a founding member in 1949. He was the association’s longest-standing member.In a letter to MAFSI members, the association’s executive director,…

Tom Ward, who spent 33 years in sales with Wells Mfg. Co., died Dec. 21, 2012 of complications from Alzheimer’s. He was 72. George Thomas Ward spent his youth on his family’s Wiley City, Wash., hop and cattle ranch. In 1972, after coaching the Yakima ski team and working for Head Ski Co., Ward joined…

The NAFEM Show is only weeks away. Among the associations planning concurrent seminars and meetings is the website for the $39 per person seminar.

A fall off the so-called fiscal cliff was skirted by Congress’s New Year’s passage of the American Taxpayer Relief Act, which included a number of tax breaks for small-business owners and foodservice operators. The legislation contains a long list of temporary tax provisions that will be extended for a year, including a provision allowing businesses…

Dozens of Cleveland residents and business owners voiced their opposition to a proposed McDonald’s outlet abutting a residential area that they say would dangerously increase traffic with a double-lane drive-through. But it wasn’t the location that led a Cleveland planning commission to veto the outlet on Nov. 15. It was the unit’s size and its…

The National Restaurant Association re-introduced an expanded Zero Waste Zones program in Atlanta on Oct. 23. The program, acquired by the NRA last year, is aimed at helping the city’s restaurateurs, foodservice businesses and retailers become more sustainable and energy-efficient. The program originally was created in 2009 by Atlanta-based Elemental Impact to help restaurateurs create…

A member of the Seattle City Council is pushing regulatory reform to facilitate a restaurant opening. Complaints from the local small-business community about the necessity of going to multiple departments at the city, county and state levels to open a restaurant only to encounter overlapping or conflicting regulations struck a cord with council members. As…

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has proposed measures that would all but eliminate artificial trans fat from the food supply. Under the proposal, the agency would declare that partially hydrogenated oils, the source of trans fats, are no longer “generally recognized as safe,” (a legal category that permits the use of, say, salt and…

The National Restaurant Association and 36 state restaurant associations have called on Senate leaders to support reforms that will provide restaurateurs and other technology end-users with relief from what it calls “abusive demands from patent trolls.” Operators have been increasingly barraged with patent-infringement litigation demand letters challenging the use of basic technologies, both in restaurant…

Austin, Texas—home to great music, great food and FER‘s own MUFES program—is considering a ban on the building of new quick-service restaurants. The Austin city council is considering a resolution that, if passed, would “restrict fast-food restaurants from locating near areas that children frequent.” Those areas would include schools, municipal parks, child-care centers and libraries.…