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Los Angeles - British chef Jamie Oliver won't be cooking another course of his reality TV show in Los Angeles schools.
The filming permit for the celebrity chef's ABC series Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution was terminated this week, said Los Angeles Unified School District spokesman Robert Alaniz.
He said Oliver had been filming for two weeks at one school but the decision was made to ban him from others because he failed to submit a proposal about his plans to officials.
"We decided to put a halt to it until we receive that proposal," said Alaniz. "We really don't want to be part of reality TV. The success formula for reality TV is drama and conflict. We're just not interested in either. This serves as a wake-up call. We're not interested in participating in reality TV across the district. We just don't want to go there."
Food Revolution to continue
A spokeswoman for the network said production on Food Revolution would continue, though she declined to specifically comment on Oliver's ban from Los Angeles schools.
Alaniz said Oliver had been shooting at West Adams Preparatory High School and was scheduled to film at Manual Arts Senior High School and Santee Education Complex before he was banned.
The first season of the reality TV show featured Oliver attempting to revolutionise the eating habits and food policies of Huntington, West Virginia.
The town, which wasn't always thrilled to have The Naked Chef there, was selected after a 2008 story by The Associated Press dubbed the five-county metropolitan area that it is in as the United States' unhealthiest.
'I'm not here to improve my TV career'
"The school fought for me to get into their school, as did the teachers and the parent groups," Oliver said Wednesday at the UCLA School of Public Health, according to a transcript. "Yesterday, my filming permit was terminated because I can't promise that the LAUSD doesn't look good. Guys, I'm a British citizen. I love your country. I'm here not because I want to improve my TV career because I have a perfectly good one."
Alaniz said the district was hesitant to be part of another reality TV production after he said the NBC school makeover show School Pride left behind a substandard paint job at Hollenbeck Middle School last year that cost the district $116 000 to repair.
Alaniz said, however, the district would continue to participate in fiction and documentary productions.
Oliver's ban was first reported by the Los Angeles Times.
