Assemblyman Bill Monning's goal is laudable – to help keep school kids from becoming obese.

But the bill he's carrying that would ban food trucks from near school grounds is a misguided way to go about it.

Food trucks – often serving gourmet or innovative fare – are adding spice to many California cities, including Sacramento. Prohibiting mobile food vendors from selling within 1,500 feet of a campus from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. on school days could threaten that encouraging trend by putting huge swaths of cities off limits to them.

Besides, there are plenty of reasons to be skeptical that the legislation would work as intended.

The bill sponsor, California Food Policy Advocates, a nonprofit that pushes for better nutrition for poor families, claims that food trucks are targeting schoolchildren. It has photos and testimonials on its website from places like a high school in Novato, where the City Council in December approved a similar ban.

But it's not at all clear if this is statewide problem that demands the attention of state lawmakers.

Also, critics correctly point out that students can get junk food at convenience stores, fast-food restaurants and other eateries very close to schools.

Monning, a Carmel Democrat who is chairman of the Assembly Health Committee, says the difference is that mobile vendors can park right at the curb and create a traffic hazard, to boot.

Already, some school districts do not allow students to leave campus to buy lunch. In districts with open campuses, if kids really want junk food, will walking 1,500 feet where vendors set up shop really stop them?

The bill's backers see this as a next step in the fight against childhood obesity, after the Legislature passed bills in recent years that banned sugar-filled soda from school vending machines and that set nutritional standards for food sold on campuses.

But Assembly Bill 1678 would go far beyond that, seeking to regulate private businesses that aren't on school grounds and that serve customers who aren't students.

Monning told The Bee's editorial board Tuesday that he's open to trying to distinguish between what he calls "high-end" food trucks that cater to adults – and ice cream trucks and pushcarts serving chips and soda.

That's a good place to start. The measure, however, will need far more surgery to merit serious consideration.

If legislators want to combat obesity, there are other proactive, helpful ways: encouraging and funding programs that get healthy local produce into school cafeterias, helping schools plant vegetable gardens, enhancing public education on good nutrition for children.

Those would be more effective than this heavy-handed bill.

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