Laurels and lances: Hunger, rats and food

Laurel: To comfort food. Hunger isn’t something new. While the economic instabilities of the coronavirus pandemic may have exacerbated the issue, food insecurity has affected the Southwestern Pennsylvania area at higher rates than the rest of the country for years. According to the City of Pittsburgh, about 21.4% of its residents face issues with accessing food compared to 12.3% nationwide.

That makes local pushes to bridge the gaps more important than ever while job loss rises and paychecks are less certain because of covid-19 complications.

Among those? The 100,000 meals Pittsburgh Penguins superstar Sidney Crosby donated to the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank. Thanks for the assist, Sid!

But let’s not forget the $80,000 raised by Excela Health employees for the Westmoreland County Food Bank. That gift came from people on the front line of the medical response who have felt supported by the community and wanted to reflect that back.

That’s the kind of gift that really feeds body and soul.

Lance: To a real rat race. It is a unforeseen boon of social distancing that fewer people out and about means less garbage. Less garbage is a good thing, right?

Sure. Unless you’re a rat.

Cities like New York and New Orleans and, yes, Pittsburgh are seeing an unexpected complication from a drop in the waste produced by restaurants, theaters and other public businesses being shuttered. The rats are getting desperate for their missing food source — and it’s turning grisly.

“Our technicians are reporting an uptick in blatant open area behavior with an increase in rat activity and cannibalism,” Adam Witt of Witt Pest Management said.

It’s hard to feel bad for rats, but it’s also not heartwarming to think of the rodent population going all Hannibal Lecter on each other.

Laurel: To open minds. Greensburg City Council is considering changes to its food truck ordinance.

Originally passed in 2016, the ordinance placed limits on times and locations that protected brick-and-mortar restaurants and made the motorized ones bristle.

Now council is thinking about making some modifications.

Kudos for giving the matter real thought and not making snap judgments, especially in light of the impact of the pandemic on the hospitality industry.

Those stationary restaurants are already going to be facing challenges making ends meet as they adjust to new ways of doing business in a post-lockdown world. Increased competition would not make that easier.

But food trucks might be the answer for some of those businesses to find the revenue streams to keep going, too. And the existing food truck businesses can’t be considered second-best when they have paychecks to write and taxes to pay, too.

Finding an answer will take real research and discussion, and it’s good to see Greensburg keeping that on the menu.