Students have mourned the loss of buying easy access snacks this year. The junk food havens included Abu Wall Today’s ice cream truck, Coach Bentley and Coach Richardson’s snack stores, cafeteria vending machines, and the football snack shack.

Many students have brought their protest up with Dr. Willmore. He says, “Students mostly complain about the truck [being gone].”

In August, the County Board made a policy that was communicated to schools stating that food trucks could not be within 500 feet of school property between 11:00 am and 2:00 pm. “500 feet is not from the building, but from the property line. It’s not like standing right out [at the front doors] and going out 500 feet, which some kids were doing and saying ‘Well that’s out by the [old] cafeteria.’ No, our property line is the circle, so that has to be 500 feet beyond the circle” Willmore stated in an interview.

Dr. Willmore said the eradication of the school snack stores was an internal decision. “They were shut down for two reasons. The first reason was that the stores were located in the gym last year. The new building has been designed so that academics are on one side and gym is on the other. With 5 to 6 minutes of passing time, students couldn’t walk over, wait in line, buy their stuff and get to class on time. The second reason was that there was a lot of trash being left.” The stores were closed after 8 or 9 years of operation. The three vendors understood and the rest of the staff was appreciative. “They understand kids want food, but it was getting to be too much of a distraction.”

Cesar Bonilla ‘14 was one of the students who protested. “I hate it. Those were my quick snacks in school that woke me up in the middle of the day. Now I have to wait until I get home to eat if I’m hungry after lunch.”

Dr. Willmore suggested that if students get hungry in the middle of the day, they should bring snacks from home.

“It’s nice to have easy, cheap access to food. I think it’s bad for both the students [because we go hungry] and the sports teams lose a lot of their fundraising money,” Julia Dumlao ‘14 said about the lack of snack stores in school.

Dr. Willmore stands by his decision, and the science does too.

“What we’re learning now about the impact of sugar, is there have been some studies on mice, in which the mice have opted for sugar over cocaine.”

New vending machines have been installed in the school with healthier alternatives to the snacks served before.