Choose one of the scenarios below, and write three complete paragraphs answering the questions that follow.
Reminder: For this exercise, you are required to write complete analytic paragraphs. Each paragraph must have a thesis, evidence and logic that support the thesis, and a concluding statement.Scenario A: Last year, the owner of a new restaurant in California had trouble getting customers to comply with the state's smoking ban. The fine for a first violation is $100. A second violation carries a fine of $200, and third and subsequent violations cost $500 each. After a third violation within one year, a representative of California's Occupational Safety and Health Administration is required to investigate complaints. Employers may be cited with fines up to $7,000 for violations classified as general or serious and fines up to $70,000 for violations classified as willfully serious. In the ban's first year in operation, the bar owner had four violations, plus a violation for a serious offense that may or may not have been willful.
1. What are the minimum and maximum amounts that the owner had to pay in fines?
2. What effect do these fines have on businesses and consumers?
3. How do these government actions protect consumers?
Scenario B: A vitamin company, Pro Health (PH), was preparing to launch a new product called "ProBio." It produced 20,000 units of ProBio at a cost of $5 per unit and packaged the product in bottles with labels that prominently displayed the ProBio name. At the last minute, PH learned that an established drug company was already selling a product named ProBio. FDA regulations prohibit drugs with identical names from being sold on the market, with the penalty for noncompliance being a full product recall. Rather than face product recall and all the attendant costs, PH decided to comply with the regulation voluntarily. As a result, the product had to be renamed and rebranded; the label had to be redesigned, remanufactured, and reapplied; and a new advertising campaign had to be formulated and launched.
1. How does this FDA regulation protect consumers?
2. Why did the company voluntarily change its product name?
3. What effect did this regulation have on the company and on consumers?