The Mogollon Monster 100 race recently took place in Arizona, and you can see some pictures here on Facebook.
One of the pictures was rather intriguing, and false.
Here’s the picture.
Sign on Arizona Business
According to the discussion, that sign is all over Gila County, Arizona. And boy, it sure looks official, doesn’t it? It even has the county seal right at the top.
Somebody went to a lot of trouble with that sign.
Of course, it is false. It is easy enough to track things down.
First, we can look at the Arizona Food Code, which is basically the FDA food code with a few variations. But, as I wrote in Shoeless Employee Leads to Health Department Inspection†, there is nothing about requiring patrons to wear shoes.
Well, let’s check next with the Gila County Food Code.
Nothing there, either. It is simply false.
Another runner even called the Gila County Health Department. They confirmed for him that there was no such requirement.
But . . .
But they also said that employees must wear shoes. Except, as you can see if you look at the ordinances, there is no such requirement for employees, either. The Health Department doesn’t know what it is talking about, either. They may be enforcing a non-existent rule.
But this is why this myth persists. People not only keep repeating it and putting it up on signs, but they also falsely put the imprimatur of the government on it.
† I’ve emailed the Corpus Christi Health Department a couple of times to try to find out what (non-existent) rule they are enforcing, and they simply don’t reply to me.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Lie
You know, when I wrote this I debated whether to call it a lie in the title. In most cases it probably isn’t a full-bore deliberate lie, but at some point the kind of actions that went into making that sign—using the logo and everything without actually first checking—get so close to lying as to make no practical difference.
An extreme indifference to the truth (particularly when things could be easily checked) really is a lie.