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NYC Loses Appeal To Ban Large Sugary Drinks
mpicpp writes with good news for every New Yorker who needs 44oz of soft drink to be refreshed. New York's Court of Appeals ruled Thursday that New York City's ban on large sugary drinks, which was previously blocked by lower courts, is illegal. "We hold that the New York City Board of Health, in adopting the 'Sugary Drinks Portion Cap Rule,' exceeded the scope of its regulatory authority," the ruling said. Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg had pushed for the ban on sugary drinks larger than 16 ounces as a way to fight obesity and other health problems.
If people want to smash down 44oz of sugar like that then let them. If you need to regulate that then really you have to wonder about the intelligence of the sort of people you are imposing the ban on, the solution is to provide adequate education and if they still ignore that advice that is their choice! It isn't harming anybody else. I'm glad this sort of nanny-state rubbish has been defeated.
Only in America can they subsidize an industry that's killing them.
Then spend even more money in other branches of government to fight the same thing..
Next they will outlaw the sales of 2 liter bottles and a straw.
Remember, every intrusion will sound good to some segment of the population.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
Thank you! Government has no business telling us what we can eat and a whole host of other things. Government should be only doing big things like fighting off alien invaders, building interstate highways, governing on a meta scale, etc. What a person does with their own body is not the government's business. And no, it doesn't matter if they're providing healthcare either.
Bloomberg is an ass and an intrusive one at that.
"It's not up to you, New York, New York."
What saddens me is that the people of NYC tolerated Nanny Bloomberg so long and proved they didn't care the slightest about the concepts of liberty and personal freedom.
I do agree that restricting portion sizes on one of the main causes of obesity and general poor health (soda) would be beneficially for society as a whole, but if I was a fat fuck who loved soda, I'd be pretty damn pissed, and I'd be rightfully pissed.
So for all you fat gluttonous bastards, I disagree with your lifestyle choices, but I am on your side when it comes to defend your right to choose.
Bloomberg doesn't understand this.
What they should do is the same thing they alread do on tobacco packages. A message warning it is hazardous to your health over a picture of Jabba the Hut.
Maybe if the ban had been in place and functional for a few years before such a ruling, people would have gotten used to smaller sized non-diet soda drinks anyway, and food service businesses would come up with a way to accommodate the new rules.
At a minimum, it would have brought the issue right to the fast-food counter that the health issues were big enough to consider taking action on.
Reminds me of San Angeles circa 2032
It would be nice if someday before our elected officials try passing dumb-ass legislation, they take into consideration all the time and effort the taxpayers are going to pay to implement and then summarily rescind the stupid things - especially on one or more appeals.
Just like the laws requiring you to proffer a drivers license to track and purchase over the counter decongestant containing the base element for meth. It hasn't stopped the number of meth labs, but boy has it bolstered revenues for various IT groups managing that boondoggle via our tax dollars.
If it was really key they ban large sized soft-drinks - just put your money where your mouth is (literally) and just outright ban non-nutritive foods altogether. Of course that won't happen nor would it work, but the road leads to the same conclusion - or wall if you're using Apple maps. (Oh c'mon. That was funny.)
If they really wanted to make a difference on the war against obesity, how about laying the smack-down on High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) in general? Or putting parents on naughty lists who have overweight children? "What? Little Johnny's BMI is in the "obese" range? Then off to FOSTER CARE!!! Oh wait. Dad who is drunk and beats his wife apologizes and the court will give him back the kid anyway having something to do with biological parent vs. best interests of the child... but I digress...
I know, make being overweight _illegal_!! Just like trying to ban guns! Make being fat illegal and owning a gun illegal. Being naked in public is already illegal so let's make it a tri-fecta!! PASS A LAW TO MAKE NAKED GUN CARRYING FAT PEOPLE ILLEGAL! THINK OF THE FAT NAKED CHILDREN! No. Wait. That involves a whole set of other laws...
(Yes. I am being facetious on several of those points. You get to guess which ones, though) :-)
Never have a philosophy which supports a lack of courage
Surely harm was done to our freedom. Surely any reasonable person laughed at the asinine way these pigs spit on our constitution, which clearly forbids the state from passing laws they have not been given authority over? Pepsi tastes like freedom.
Bloomberg should have been tarred and feathered and run out of town on a rail but the citizenry just doesn't have it in 'em any more. Too busy hiding from the police? This is just one example of the nothing we've become. People don't even laugh at us any more. I say The bottling companies sue for triple damages. That's the way we roll in America baby.
Turn away the diabetic fat asses that turn up at public hospitals and clinics, right? Why should the state all of a sudden be a nanny when we're sick, particularly due to our own bad decisions?
also over worked people / working lunch's end up with Bad eating habits as well.
Many places with soda fountains use pricing schemes that encourge consumers to buy the next size in order to get a better value.
My local movie theater charges $3.50 for a small drink (20 oz / 591 ml), $4.00 for a medium (32 oz / 946 ml) and $4.50 for a large (44 oz / 1301 ml).
If you divide out the prices, you get: small = $0.175/oz, medium = $0.125/oz, large = $0.102/oz.
Normalizing, you see that small = 1.71, medium = 1.22, large = 1.00.
In other words, consumers see this as paying 71% extra per ounce for a small drink or 22% extra per ounce for a medium drink.
If you want to combat obesity, you could offer merchants tax discounts if they keep all of the prices within 10% per ounce of soft drink (or of whatever).
For example, small = $2.25, medium = $3.50, large = $4.50 is normalized as small = 1.10, medium = 1.07, large = 1.00.
Bloomberg is a billionaire. I don't believe for a second he's doing this out of the kindness of his heart. If the guy really gave a flying fark about the poor there's a thousand and one things he could be doing. Maybe this is punishment to the local soda manufacturers? It's just too silly a thing to push when it means going up against companies like Coke & Pepsi, who aren't exactly well known for taking things lying down.
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a local or city $0.10 per ounce tax on all beverages containing added sugar (or corn syrup, etc), which would include non-100% juice ''cocktail'', sunny d, sweetened teas and coffees, etc, would have cut consumption of that category of foodstuff and raised some local tax revenues at the same time.
But it wasn't going to regulate people drinking 44fl oz of whatever, or even 16.5fl oz
If a patron wanted, there was nothing stopping them from buying, say, 3 x 16fl oz drinks and gulp that all up. Alternatively, there was nothing stopping them from getting one 16fl oz drink and going for refills.
This was entirely on businesses, disallowing them to sell anything over 16fl oz.
Changing it to say that they wanted to prohibit people from drinking more than that certainly incensed people who are against government intrusion into personal affairs - but that really only helped the case of businesses who would rather sell you one bigger drink of which more is likely to just get tossed anyway or drank because people didn't want to toss it so they drank more than they actually wanted, than that they sell you a smaller drink and then have more people realize that they really don't want any more than that.
There's a reason that the other party was "the American Beverage Association" and not, say, the ACLU or some rights group that defends individuals' personal freedoms (rather than business' freedoms).
That's what the goal was, which as a side-effect may have been that people would drink less of it - but if they really wanted to, they could always go and drink more.
Well, that and of course tell people what to eat, when to eat, and how to eat. /sarcasm
So if there's any argument to be had, it should be about whether businesses should be free to serve whatever size drink they damn well please, no matter the content (aside from those regulated already, like liquor).
Are you kidding? European agricultural subsidies are substantially higher than Americans, and also on bad foods, but most Europeans don't know, and the ones who do don't give a f*ck.
Only in America do people actually care and talk about this. And in another 5-10 years, this will be a big deal in Europe and then, maybe, Europeans will copy whatever the Americans decided to do.
The ban on sugary drinks larger than 16 ounces as a way to fight obesity and other health problems was a stupid idea to begin with. What's to keep a couple from buying one drink, sitting down, then going back for another, then another, etc.? If you want to fight obesity, teach people who to eat properly instead of wasting resources trying to ban the bad foods. I went from 275 lbs to 150 lbs (those aren't typo's!) in a year because I learned how to eat properly.
5 cents an oz.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Why does hos money mean he can't be doing what he thinks is best?
And as a Mayor, he can influence policy.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Yup. W shouldn't further degrade the human gene pool. Let idiots drink 44 oz sugarbombs, bike w/o helmets, drive w/o seat belts, buy recreational drugs from untrusted sources, etc.
We have far too many stupid people already. Something has to be done - think of the (idiot) children... No tag here, I'm serious!
else responsible for this obvious overreach of power. Only way to prevent this shit is to start executing the authoritarian scum responsible.
Bloomberg is a billionaire. I don't believe for a second he's doing this out of the kindness of his heart. If the guy really gave a flying fark about the poor there's a thousand and one things he could be doing. Maybe this is punishment to the local soda manufacturers? It's just too silly a thing to push when it means going up against companies like Coke & Pepsi, who aren't exactly well known for taking things lying down.
They would make just as much money, if not more, by selling smaller volumes at a not-quite proportionally smaller cost.
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
Think of it this way: He not only gets an ego boost from helping them and being such a great guy, but from having the power to stop them and from being better than them for not having those habits. I'm pretty sure the guy looks in the mirror and sees a perfect person standing there.
I'm not sure if it's appropriate in this case, but I'm far more in favour of sin taxes than outright bans.
Like I said, I don't know if I'm in favour of that in this case.
On the one hand, it is clearly a harm that a person is doing to themselves if it is even a harm at all. (On the latter: there are days when someone may drink excessive amounts of sugar water, even though their nutrition is good over all. Do we really want to place restrictions on that?)
On the other hand, poor nutrition is a huge social problem that industry contributes to. Even if you ignore their attempts to persuade people to make unhealthy choices through advertising (and yes, the bulk of advertising seems to be geared towards unhealthy choices), you also have to consider product availability. Consider the bulk of grocery stores. While they do offer plenty of healthy choices, the bulk of the floor is dedicated to prepared foods (including drinks) that are chock full of sugars. Consider eating out. Many places offer nothing beyond sugar water and coffee. Even the things that pretend to be juice aren't terribly different from soda, outside of the lack of carbonation. When they do offer proper juice, it typically has sugar added -- though certainly not to the degree that non-juices have. So if you don't have a healthy choice, people are usually going to make an unhealthy choice.
The breakfast buffet at a nearby casino used to just take my drink order. Now, I am told I cant have a large apple juice for breakfast. So I order 3 small ones instead (which is probably more product than I would have been served with a large, i.e. more cost to them. Hope that wasnt the reason it recently went from $5 to $6.) Does ne1 think the marketdroids wont figure out a 3/$1.11 campaign with a free re-usable carrier to hang them on the car window? Thereby providing 48oz of sugared water, 4oz more than before. I am sure thats the result such femtobrains were seeking.
There is no right to feel safe thru security vaudeville at the expense of everyone's freedom, privacy and tax money.
How does the logic of this decision impact future 'legalize' campaigns for marijuana?
Because he is a goddamn megalomaniac control freak. Actually helping people wouldn't exert enough control to satisfy his authority boner so he gives us the large soda ban and Stop and Frisk.
We'll pass a new law requiring people to force themselves to vomit.
So the Great Soviet State of Mickey Bloomberg is dust.
Good for the real United States of America.
I was all set to sell sturdy little folding multi-cup holders that folded up so you could fit them in a purse, pocket, or glove compartment. But wait, there's more. You also get the multi-cup holder that fits in your car's regular old cup-holder. That's a great deal, right? Wrong! Call in the next 10 minutes and get DOUBLE. That's right, you get two of each--the folding multi-cup holder and two folding multi-cup car holders. Operators are standing by.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
I'm in NYC right now, visiting for a physics conference.
To an outsider, New Yorkers seem uniquely willing to deal with (and, when in charge, impose) authoritarian rules that people from elsewhere would chafe at. Don't do this; do this; everything in New York seems over-regulated. It's not just from the government; it's everywhere. I'm staying in a dormitory at Columbia University, and the rules on how guest passes work are quite asinine. The plenary talks at the conference have free bottled water and coffee provided (the conference organizers have paid Columbia's chosen caterer for this already), but bring in any of your own water bottles and it's a $1000 (!) fine. [This is different from the standard "no outside food" rule at restaurants, since they want you to buy their stuff; in this case the catering is all already paid for.]
I was also fortunate enough to get to perform in Carnegie Hall a few months ago with a choir I sing with. During our rehearsal, the conductor wanted her podium moved a few inches to get out of the way of a troupe of dancers sharing the stage. She wasn't allowed to move this simple block of wood three inches; someone had to go get a union stagehand, since it was made very clear to us: the union stagehands, by the terms of their contract, are the only ones allowed to touch anything, including things as mundane as music stands.
For whatever reason, New York is full of rules. Maybe some of them are necessary to keep eight million people crammed into this sardine can from hurting each other, but this has so conditioned the people here to obey unnecessary rules that people go along with it.
It's not the city that passed the law. It is a controlling, dickhead, liberal mayor. As Obama is showing us, executive power can be a very destructive thing.
Michael Bloomberg was elected mayor of NYC *three* times on the Republican ticket. Check your biases, moron.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
Yeah, an Apache helicopter parent just raining Hellfire on anyone below!
Certainly judging by the dimensions of people whose health they were affecting.
You're perfectly free to sit at home and consume bags of sugar if you want to, but the permitted drink size in public places should ideally have been inversely proportional to the weight of the person ordering it. That way all the lard ass libertarians would have had to keep waddling back to the counter and ordering a refill, thus burning off a few more of the calories they'd just guzzled.
On the one hand, I'm glad that people can get whatever the hell size drink they want without government interference now...
On the other hand, having dropping over 70 lbs eliminating my intake of sugar-laden crap, I'm kinda sad...
So, I'm torn... freedom vs health... where do I stand?! I... think I have to go with freedom here. I *chose* to stop consuming that crap. I don't want to force others down my path, as much as I honestly believe that it would help people. I'd rather people have the free will to choose, based on the evidence before them, but I'm too cynical to believe they will. I'd still like to naively think they will though, at least up until the point where their bad choices are costing *me* money...
"The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule." --H.L. Mencken
The bigger the cup the more ice.
4 11 oz cups will have a lot more soda then 2 22 oz cups which will have a lot more soda then 1 44 oz cup.
That's the way the merchants work.
Health issues aside, this sort of nanny-state-ism needs to just die in a fire.
I look at it the same way I look at some busybody grabbing food out of people's hands going "no no no".
If people want it, and they spend the money for it, it's nobody's business if they actually do so.
And that's BEFORE getting into how arbitrary the enforcement of this was.
Momma-Mayor Busybody-Blomberg can now go back to screwing up his own life and stop pestering people who just was a cup of soda.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
As a European, I remember going into my first cinema in LA and as it was a hot day, deciding to get a drink to sip on during the film. I asked for a small coke but watched the counter assistant pick up a large, circular container. "No, no! I just wanted a small coke, not a bucket of popcorn" "Sir, this is the cup for a small coke..."
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I'm fairly anti-soda, but I do not believe the government should start dictating people's personal habits. I am all for the government doing education campaigns to inspire people make better decisions.
The trouble with that idea is that private industry via the government is suppressing information.
I recently saw the documentary "FedUp", which didn't have much new to say about the evils of sweeteners and refined flour, but it had a lot to say politically.
At one point the U.N. was about to publish a report stating that to safeguard their health in addition to controlling their weight, people should limit their sweetener & refined flour consumption to no more than 10% of their calories a day ( 50 grams of sweetener in your food per day on a 2000 calorie diet. A bottle of grape Fanta soda has 80 grams of sugar, a cup of orange juice has 20 grams ).
In the documentary, it was described how the American food industry used its influence to get the George W. Bush administration to convince the U.N. to not publish that report.
While the grams of sugar might be on food labels, the percentage of the limit is not printed on there--- by conscious choice, making it harder for people to know when they are going overboard.
I don't know. It takes more than one to quench my thirst.
That is complete BS. Yes it is proven that it cases a range of health problems. However it has been proven by several studies now, that smokers not only do not cost more than others, but in fact cost less. The issue is that most of the most costly health care is end of life care, and the bottom line is that smokers generally die earlier in life, while not smokers keep going and the longer you live later in life the more problems you have and the more expensive they are.
The tax does two things. One it is a source of revenue for the government (a large one), and two, it does the same thing as trying to ban it for our safety by making it more expensive the idea is less people will smoke. Having their cake and eating it so to speak. Personally I find it a bit disingenuous to say "this is bad you shouldn't do it", then jack the prices increasing revenue under the auspices of "public health". It could also be argued that more smokers are less well off (wealthy), so this amounts to another tax on the poor.
Either way, the money generated, is in no way earmarked for "health care" and they can put it towards any silly project or program they like...
There is a trivial fix for all the above: charge a 20% tax on ALL high sugar drinks of ALL sizes and use that money EXCLUSIVELY to fund health care.
Just tax large sugary drinks at a higher tax rate. That would probably stand up to a legal challenge; "sin taxes" have been used for years in many jurisdictions.
not the point he was making at all. The point stands, when obama doesnt get his way through congress, he does it anyway, just as bush did, and just as bloomy tried.
too much power in the hands of any 1 individual be it mayor or president is a bad thing.
in other words, check your biases, moron
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
Don't encourage him. Let him get back to correcting peoples use of then/than.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Require cups to be labeled with the average calorie count when filled with a regular/non-diet beverage such as Coca-Cola or Pepsi. Also, require a minimum font size for legibility and that the label cannot be on the bottom of the cup.
Bloomberg is a billionaire. I don't believe for a second he's doing this out of the kindness of his heart. If the guy really gave a flying fark about the poor there's a thousand and one things he could be doing. Maybe this is punishment to the local soda manufacturers?
Nah, he's heavily invested in a company that makes 16 oz drink containers.
Of course I'm speculating, but the truth is probably closer to what I've said than we know.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
The motivation behind this is not a healthy one if claiming for no other reason than more mindless politics seeking to control the masses and the end result being the wasting of millions of dollars worth of public funds on litigation in what could have begun as a healthy alternative to sugary drinks campaign. Was there any mention of the harmful effects of aspartame and how a potion of it converts to formaldihide at 86 deg F in certain non sugary drinks being pushed as low fat and no fat alternatives? Was there any evidence submitted as to the toxicity of the fluoridated water supply? Was there any reference made to high PH water sources for health benefits?
Once again, who really makes out by this are more lawyers raking taxpayer money out of the system to go after law abiding people fighting to retain their lawful rights to make their own informed decisions about their own health. You are not my mother. Sit down.
not the point he was making at all. The point stands, when obama doesnt get his way through congress, he does it anyway, just as bush did, and just as bloomy tried. too much power in the hands of any 1 individual be it mayor or president is a bad thing. in other words, check your biases, moron
It was definitely overreach for Bloomberg to attempt this. And it was hugely unpopular in NYC for just that reason. However. the operative term I was replying to in the OP's rant was "dickhead, liberal mayor." Bloomberg is definitely a dickhead, but also definitely not a liberal. I certainly wasn't defending Bloomberg or his heavy-handed tactics.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
ahh, i see, I understand now. Personally I would call him a liberal as well, anyone who wants to push a nanny state as bloomy did to me anyway is a liberal hes not as liberal as most democrats, but to me personally, a lot of his big nanny state legislation screams liberal. but a NYC conservative is always going to seem liberal just as a san fran republican would as well
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
Depends on your definition of "isn't harming anybody else." Are higher healthcare costs not harming anybody else? Is lost productivity due to health issues not harming anybody else? I'm not saying I agree with the concept of using the police power of the state to force people to be healthy, but let's not justify that position with bullshit. What people do does affect others no matter how badly Libertarians dream about it being otherwise.
Can you back that claim up with evidence, or are you just positing it as an a priori truth?
I really don't think this is a matter for the courts, it's not the food company's fault you got fat based off the fact you didn't use self control. A food company could release a 200 oz drink and it doesn't mean you have to drink it.
How many sugar drinks do you need to drink at once for getting an overdose and never be thirsty again?