South San Joaquin County isn’t exactly a “fast food desert.”

Actually, that’s old school planning jargon.

They are now called “quick serve restaurants.”

Maybe that is so woke planners can avoid being called hypocrites when every 10 years they adopt city and county general plans that babble about healthy and livable communities among other buzzwords.

Regardless of what you call it; a pig is still a pig even if you put mascara on it along with the proverbial lipstick. The same applies to the McDonald’s, Burger King, Taco Bell, et al genre.

San Joaquin County supervisors, in their infinite wisdom, a few years back adopted a county general plan that calls for agricultural land to be zoned crossroads commercial at the intersection of Jack Tone and East Highway 120.

It’s about three miles east of the fast food haven known as Manteca, four miles north of the emerging fast food Mecca surrounding Jack Tone Road/Highway 99 interchange in Ripon, and seven miles west of the Taco Bell in Escalon.

Apparently, travelers can’t go more than three or so miles without having a fast food joint in case they get the munchies.

There is not a better reason to riddle the vibrant San Joaquin County agricultural countryside  with more fast food options that will essentially serve tourists going to and from the Yosemite and Sierra.

Make no doubt about it.

That is what the four fast food restaurants, market-restaurant combo, convenience store plus fueling stations will rely 99 percent on for business if the county allows them to be built.

Of course, the county will allow it to be built.

Why not act as if East Highway 120 is Interstate 5 from Patterson to the Grapevine virtual devoid of highway services?

After all, there is sales tax to have on fast food,

And now that a trip to one of them is easily $10 to $15 per person, the county’s one cent share can certainly add up.

But let’s be fair.

Maybe the county believes crossroads commercial zoning at Jack Tone and East Highway 99 would have replicated what Jimmy’s One-Stop convenience stores in rural areas like Airport Way and Kasson Road south of Manteca and on Linne Road south of Tracy do.

Or even like what the combo cafe-market in Collegeville on Jack Tone Road on the way to Lockeford does.

They serve as a place for farmers to hang out, farm workers to grab food, or people living in the countryside to pick up items without having to go to town.

There isn’t exactly dozens of homes within a mile or so of the corner of Jack Tone and East Highway 120.

There clearly isn’t a local demand between Escalon and Manteca to replicate the fast food concentration just three miles to the east where East Highway 120 meets Highway 99.

And is there really a demand for — or a dearth of — fast food restaurants for East Highway 120 travelers?

Monday through Thursday traffic is primarily commuters from Sonora, the surrounding hills, and Oakdale-Escalon.

Friday evening to Sunday evening is when the tourism traffic kicks in.

Most people are hellbent to get to their destination and equally hellbent at the end of the weekend to get back home.

Crossroads commercial, in this case, is really highway commercial.

The labeling of the zoning as “crossroads” conjures up images of how communities originally sprung up in San Joaquin County to serve farms and people traveling about locally.

The advent of the automobile left the only such areas that survived that did not have a town in the way of it being well-established such as Linden, as well as places like Farmington and Collegeville that have a somewhat higher concentration of nearby homes and are on routes that are dozens of miles from a town.

That is why crossroads commercial at Jack Tone Road and East Highway 120 is so bizarre.

One must assume the county isn’t crazy enough to break its long standing ordinances that restrict how small parcels can be in agricultural zones to avoid agricultural areas being riddled with “country estates.”

Perhaps if the location was indeed in the middle of nowhere it would make sense.

But the opening of the door to five — count them five — fast food restaurants that close to Manteca essentially at a crossroads surrounded by almond orchards is akin to opening Pandora’s Box.

It is the first pounding of the chisel called urbanization that will happen under the misleading moniker of “crossroads commercial” to weaken the future viability of farming east of Manteca.

What is being proposed may meet the county’s definition of crossroads commercial but it clearly is what you would find in highway commercial zones hugging interchanges along the Autobahn section of Interstate 5 from Lathrop south to the Grapevine.

Had the county been completely transparent and attached a name to what the zoning that they wanted at the intersection and called a duck a duck and said it was highway commercial instead, they would likely have had push back in the general plan update process.

Again, there are no fewer than 35 fast food and other restaurants between Ripon and Manteca within four miles of the intersection.

There are also eight gas stations and even more convenience stores.

County planners, in their infinite wisdom, advanced a general plan that calls for the land that is now zoned agriculture to be crossroads commercial which is essentially the same as highway commercial.

You say fast food restaurants; planners say quick serve restaurants.

You say highway commercial; planners say crossroads commercial.

It is not just semantics.

The words “fast food restaurants” and “highway commercial” in the minds of many conjure up congestion and a list of other dislikes, warranted or not, such as litter.

The words “quick serve restaurants” and “crossroads commercial” do not.

Making San Joaquin County as being McDonald’s kind of place is a bad way to start off the county’s second 175 years.

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This column is the opinion of editor, Dennis Wyatt, and does not necessarily represent the opinions of The Bulletin or 209 Multimedia. He can be reached at dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com