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NYC Loses Appeal To Ban Large Sugary Drinks

Posted by samzenpus on from the I-want-the-jumbo dept.

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.

29 of 532 comments (clear)

  1. Let them drink! by exomondo · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Let them drink! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Bad eating habits are associated with the lower class, and the lower class are also likely to use hospitality emergency rooms for their illnesses, sticking the taxpayer with the bill. So yes, their choices do have an effect on the people around them.

    2. Re:Let them drink! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      That kind of crap can be used to justify anything any government anywhere ever wanted to do.

    3. Re:Let them drink! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The fact that something has an indirect effect on others is no reason to ban it, especially in the so-called "land of the free." Just about everything has some indirect effect on others. Hobbyist mountain climbing? Can't do that, as you might hurt yourself and damage your family emotionally and cost taxpayers money. Ice skating? Video gaming? Same thing. Get rid of all unnecessary activities, because otherwise you might indirectly affect others!

      Nah. I'd rather pay more taxes, thanks.

    4. Re:Let them drink! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      By all means make them buy two 22oz drinks instead. That will definitely solve the problem.

    5. Re:Let them drink! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Then the solution is for the government and the taxpayers to tell the fat asses and poor people to fuck off and pay for their own healthcare.

    6. Re:Let them drink! by khallow · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I don't know if the above poster was sincere or sarcastic, but this does illustrate a slippery slope. Nobody would care about bad eating habits, if they had decided, for example, to let everyone fend for themselves.

      But having decided that free health care should be extended to people who have bad eating habits (and make other poor decisions), now the rationalization exists to regulate and control those peoples' eating habits. An act of tyranny follows a supposed act of charity.

      It's never just accepted that some people will make bad decisions in a democratic society and to just suck up the cost of that.

    7. Re:Let them drink! by russotto · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I don't know if the above poster was sincere or sarcastic, but this does illustrate a slippery slope. Nobody would care about bad eating habits, if they had decided, for example, to let everyone fend for themselves.

      Those of us opposed to government-provided health care have been pointing this out for decades; that once you have the government providing health care, that can be used as an excuse to control everything and anything which could affect anyone's health. Of course proponents poo-poohed that and said we were paranoid and yelled "slippery slope fallacy".

    8. Re:Let them drink! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      This is the US, virtually nobody is getting free healthcare.

      Arguably people on Medicaid who have never had a job before are getting free health care, Very few adults are in that category.

      --AC

    9. Re:Let them drink! by Rockoon · · Score: 4, Insightful

      In civilized society we impose rules to prevent people from harming others.

      FTFY

      And before you go there, there is also "In civilized society we do not impose rules that force people to harm others."

      --
      "His name was James Damore."
    10. Re:Let them drink! by Redmancometh · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Which sounds like a great argument against nationalized healthcare...one I mentioned on here a long time ago

    11. Re:Let them drink! by jeIlomizer · · Score: 3, Insightful

      While it's true that Republicans tend to use proven facts and make decisions based on them (unlike liberals)

      What? Anyone who votes for either party (Republican or Democrat) is voting for evil scumbags who only seek to take away our rights. They're idiots fooled into accepting a false dichotomy. The only proven fact is that both parties want to shred the constitution and our fundamental liberties, so if people truly opposed that, they wouldn't be voting for the scumbags put forth by The One Party.

      --
      If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
    12. Re:Let them drink! by sjames · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The many other countries in the west with proper healthcare have managed to limit their meddling to a few PSAs urging healthy eating and such.

      When is the last time you saw the health police whipping overweight joggers through the streets of London?

    13. Re:Let them drink! by sjames · · Score: 4, Insightful

      And lo and behold, NYCs attempt to bring your fears to life were promptly shot down by the courts. So I guess it's not actually the problem you thought it was.

    14. Re:Let them drink! by dj245 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The many other countries in the west with proper healthcare have managed to limit their meddling to a few PSAs urging healthy eating and such.

      When is the last time you saw the health police whipping overweight joggers through the streets of London?

      If the US taxed corn syrup, instead of subsidizing it, that would be a start. Soft drnks are very modestly sized in every foreign country I have been in. Coincidentally, all those foreign countries use real sugar instead of corn syrup in their fizzy drinks.

      --
      Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
    15. Re:Let them drink! by fredprado · · Score: 3, Insightful

      For each one of those arbitrary laws that are stopped at least a couple more pass. The number of absurd laws that try to protect people from themselves is inexorably growing.

    16. Re:Let them drink! by mjwx · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Is there a per jump tax on skydiving or how do you'll handle that?

      How many hospitalisations per 100,000 pop are there from skydiving?

      Is there a per mile tax on mountain biking or how do you'll handle that.

      How many hospitalisations per 100,000 pop are there from mountain biking?

      Is there a tax on watching TV

      How many hospitalisations per 100,000 pop are there from watching TV?

      How, exactly, does all this work?

      Well first of all I shoot down your hyperbole. Then I explain how horribly wrong you are

      None of the things you listed are inherently unhealthy. Every cigarette does damage, there is no healthy way to smoke and it does cost a lot of money. Significant portions of your health insurance goes to keeping smokers alive, in places like Canada and Australia where tobacco is heavily taxed this is recouped directly from the smokers and not from me (a non-smoker). In places like the US, this comes from general revenue collected from everyone.

      --
      Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
    17. Re:Let them drink! by sjames · · Score: 4, Insightful

      That ongoing march has been happening for decades. Well before even a hint of a public conversation about universal healthcare. Whatever is to blame, it's not healthcare.

    18. Re:Let them drink! by mattack2 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I agree with getting rid of the subsidy (and all other subsidies, even ones I like), but why tax it any more than sugar? Are you one of those who have unscientific beliefs that corn syrup is worse than any other sugar?

    19. Re:Let them drink! by LordLimecat · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Bad voting habits are associated with the lower class, and the lower class is likely to vote for measures that are neither sustainable nor healthy for society. So yes, their voting does have an affect on the people around them, and should be regulated.

      Wait, this is starting to sound like a really terrible line of reasoning.

    20. Re:Let them drink! by fredprado · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Sure, current healthcare laws are certainly not THE thing to blame, they are just part of the problem, a problem that started decades ago, when people began to naively think that the government is a magic entity with infinite resources and can solve all of humanities problems.

    21. Re:Let them drink! by dskoll · · Score: 3, Insightful

      We here in Canada have government-provided health care, and we don't have restrictive or silly laws that I'm aware of regarding the consumption of unhealthy foods, etc.

      I find the attitude of Americans to government perplexing: They seem to hate government and are viciously opposed to any and all taxation. Well, sorry... you simply cannot run a modern society without some government services and government participation in the economy. IMO, any rich industrialized country that does not provide subsidized health care for its citizens is abdicating its responsibility.

      You also can't run a modern economy properly without some government regulation. The under-regulated US financial system melted down in 2008, costing Americans trillions. The "over-regulated" Canadian banking system sailed through without a hiccup; our banking system is far more robust than that in the US.

      Sometimes it takes government regulation to control the worst instincts of corporations. Corporations are interested only in what benefits them, not in what benefits society.

  2. The Sugary Slope by rmdingler · · Score: 5, Insightful
    As well-intentioned as the prohibition on large, unhealthy soft drinks may sound, we are generally better for less government intrusion into our everyday lives.

    Remember, every intrusion will sound good to some segment of the population.

    --
    Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.

    Ernest Hemingway

  3. Praise the Courts by pubwvj · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Praise the Courts by bunratty · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Just to be clear, you're talking about making all drugs, prostitution, abortion, and gambling all completely legal, right?

      --
      What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
    2. Re:Praise the Courts by amiga3D · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I feel abortion is wrong but have come to conclude it is pointless to argue the point. Instead maybe we could agree to do something to make it unnecessary. The number of unplanned pregnancies in the US every year is Insane. Maybe we could just work together on that and then most of these abortions need never happen.

  4. Surgeon General's warning. by riverat1 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Surgeon General's warning. by mjwx · · Score: 4, Insightful

      What they *should* do is just get it over with already.

      Either ban them completely or stop restricting them at all.

      Because prohibition doesn't work.

      The US has bans of marijuana, has that disappeared? the little experiment with alcohol prohibition in the 30? Banning a substance means you lose all control over it. You end up with backyard smokes cut with woodshavings to make it cheaper (even more unhealthy than straight tobacco).

      OTOH The problem with unrestricted smoking is that a lot of people who dont smoke will be affected by it. This is what Libertarians always ignore, almost everything you do has an effect on someone else.

      Ultimately the people who dont smoke will outnumber those who do and smokers are so extremely unreasonable. Here's what happened in Australia.
      Non-smokers: Would you mind not smoking in the office please.
      Smoker: ITS MY RIGHT. I CAN DO WHATEVER I LIKE AN THERE'S NOTHING YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT, MY RIGHT, MY RIGHT, MY RIGHT (followed by stamping their feet)
      So smoking was banned indoors.

      Non-smokers: Would you mind not smoking near the entrance?
      Smoker: ITS MY RIGHT. I CAN DO WHATEVER I LIKE AN THERE'S NOTHING YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT, MY RIGHT, MY RIGHT, MY RIGHT (followed by stamping their feet)
      So smokers must now smoke 5 metres away from building entrances.

      Ultimately, smoking restrictions came about due to the extreme discourtesy of smokers.

      The ban on large soft drinks did not come about because we dont have the same problem. If someone is drinking a large coke near you, you're not going to have to smell it on your clothes for the next 4 hours, if you're working in a place where people drink soft drinks, you're not forced to breathe it in. This is the bit Libertarians always ignore, then again reality and Libertarians were always at odds.

      --
      Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
  5. Not about consumption, but about sales by QuasiSteve · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If people want to smash down 44fl oz of sugar like that then let them. If you need to regulate that

    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).