Where are the Energy Police?

My family had a quick lunch yesterday at a local fast food chain restaurant (it was one of the healthier food choice chains).

I couldn’t help but look around the restaurant while we ate – I noticed a number of things that bothered me. Ok, before you read any further, the food was good, so that wasn’t the issue.

First of all, the restaurant was freezing – it must have been about 10 degrees Celsius, at best. My wife asked if the employees were cold. Their response was ‘no, this oven keeps us warm’. It was about 16 degrees Celsius in Fredericton yesterday (no need for A/C) – I couldn’t understand why they felt it necessary to freeze their customers.

Then there were the lights. The front of the restaurant is all windows; there really is no need for lights to be on in the seating area during the day. Yet, there were the usual fluorescent tubes in the ceiling and individual incandescent bulbs on above every table – 15 of them (yes, I counted).

Then there were the fans. Not only was the air conditioner blasting sub-zero air onto the customers, but there were four ceiling fans running at the same time.

I did some quick math and estimated that they are wasting about $5,000 to $10,000 per year in that one location. Multiply that the thousands of restaurants they operate and presto – you get a bunch of money and a bunch of greenhouse gas emissions.

So, I put this out to the readers – what would you do in this situation? Are there any Energy Police out there? Let me know if you have ever seen something like this and talked to the manager or taken similar actions – I would love to know!