Oh, my head! Mayor Bloomberg wants to take his ban on large sodas statewide.
Now that his 12 years as mayor are winding down, Bloomberg, like Mary Poppins, is seeking other opportunities to guide wayward children. Unlike Mary Poppins, he has no sense of humor, flair or proportion.
Every now and then great societies produce successful leaders who mistakenly believe they know what is best for the unlucky, unwashed and undereducated masses.
Bloomberg has used his bully pulpit to push New Yorkers around as part of his decade-long nanny state crusade to transform city residents into healthier beings. He succeeded in banning smoking indoors and in public parks, barring restaurants from cooking with trans fats and requiring them to reduce salt content and post calorie counts.
Smoking has declined tremendously in New York. Tobacco taxes are prohibitively high. Scary antismoking ads haunt our waking consciousness.
Fighting obesity is Bloomberg’s latest crusade. And it’s a truly laudable goal, but with his typical hubris, Bloomberg goes too far.
His latest ban on sodas in serving sizes larger than 16 ounces, which takes effect on March 12, will burden small businesses and increase costs to consumers. [On Monday afternoon, a Manhattan state supreme court justice issued an injunction delaying implementation of the cap on large-size sodas.]
Supermarkets, 7-Elevens, other convenience stores and Starbucks are exempt. That puts New York’s mom-and-pop stores at a severe disadvantage, as the ban essentially enacts a policy that will force the local guys to reduce options while the Starbucks next door continues business as usual.
Because the exempt stores are state-regulated, Bloomberg’s beverage restrictions are unfairly and disproportionately applied. Many more minority- and immigrant-owned small businesses will be impacted.
I’ve learned that it’s hard enough being a New York City vendor, food truck operator or restaurant owner without having to contend with a myriad of uneven regulations that bar you from selling the same product your corporate state-regulated competitor does.
In 2011, the United States Department of Agriculture rejected the city’s proposed two-year experiment to see if a soda purchase ban would reduce obesity and diabetes among low-income people who buy their groceries with food stamps.
In a victory for freedom of choice, Tom Vilsack, the secretary of agriculture, affirmed the USDA’s “tradition of supporting and promoting incentive-based solutions” for low-income persons who rely on food stamps.
At the time Bloomberg vowed that his administration would “continue to pursue new and unconventional ways to combat the health problems that hurt New Yorkers and Americans from coast to coast.”
Read the rest: Nanny Bloomberg should heed ‘my body, my choice’ credo (CityandStateNY.com)
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- Nanny Bloomberg Not Happy With Soda Ban Block, Vows More Nannyism (stoptheaclu.com)
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