Berkeley Residents Have Vaze Off Dealing Mit Deez Tingz....

[Joe Guy]

In the next election they will propose how to deal with untaxed sugary drink smugglers....

Berkeley passes soda tax; effort may be tougher elsewhere
By Ann Saphir

BERKELEY Calif. (Reuters) - The California city of Berkeley overwhelmingly approved the first U.S. ballot measure to tax sugary soft drinks, and while supporters hope it will unleash similar efforts nationwide, organizers of the measure say their grassroots effort will not be easy to duplicate.

The success in Tuesday's vote in liberal Berkeley follows a string of failures to tax soda, including in nearby Richmond, California, in 2012, as well as in New York City.

Berkeley's new law will impose a 1-cent-per-ounce tax on sugar-sweetened beverages. But a similar measure in nearby San Francisco was defeated on Tuesday, highlighting continuing challenges for future efforts.

Berkeley council member Linda Maio, one of the measure's key backers, credited the success to lessons learned from Richmond's failure, as well as local planning focused on her city.

For other cities, she plans a primer that will include pointers on private polling, building a base of volunteers and messaging, which in Berkeley's case revolved around the impact diabetes has on the African American community.

The local branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People was one of the early supporters of the measure.

“Other towns would have to tailor for their own situation," making it unlikely that Berkeley's soda tax victory would be quickly replicated, Maio said.

Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg donated $647,000 to Berkeley's campaign, facing off against soft drink makers that spent more than $2 million. His efforts to limit soda sales in the nation's largest city were previously thwarted by a legal challenge from the soda industry.

Bloomberg is ready to assist with future efforts in other municipalities but will decide whether to get involved based on the strength of each campaign and the chances of the measure passing, said Bloomberg aide Howard Wolfson.

"Overall, we are going to look aggressively to partner with local leadership," he said.

Bloomberg chose not to get involved in San Francisco because he thought the two-thirds vote required to pass the tax was too difficult to reach, Wolfson said. In Berkeley, a majority vote was needed.

American Beverage Association spokesman Christopher Gindlesperger said Berkeley's effort was a case of "venue-shopping" by soda-tax advocates who have little support elsewhere in the nation.

"By no means does Berkeley’s passing a soda tax portend a trend," he said.

Maio and other organizers, including public health activist Vicki Alexander, say they spent more than a year planning the effort, meeting repeatedly with Richmond organizers, who told them what to expect, including an onslaught of anti-tax ads. [ID:nL1N0ST0SP]

Despite early entreaties from Berkeley organizers for help, Bloomberg's donation came only late in the game, Alexander said. The group focused instead on winning the backing of influential local groups.

From the start, the Berkeley campaign was intent on independence.

When consultants for San Francisco's soda tax measure showed up at a Berkeley planning session earlier this year to offer their input, they were turned away at the door.

source

[MajGenl.Meade]

Now if only they'd attack bottled water with greater enthusiasm. Heaps of garbage indicate which is the greater danger.

[rubato]

Americans buy 2 times as much soda as bottled water. So soda produces two times as much trash. Total water consumption has just recently passed soda in volume but that includes non-bottled water.

Yrs,
Rubato

[MajGenl.Meade]

2 x soda does not (necessarily) = 2 x trash depending on "trash'. Presumably this includes fountain drinks which are not served in environmentally destructive plastic bottles. Perhaps it doesn't. They won't take on "water" because they'd get their asses kicked by all the liberal dweebs who don't drink from a tap. Mind you, in CA that might be not such a bad thing

[Joe Guy]

The argument for the tax is that it will help fight diabetes and obesity. It has nothing to do with soda and water bottles accumulating. It is a stupid tax and anybody that supports it is mentally pixilated.

yrs,

-Joe Unpixilatedmindguy

[MajGenl.Meade]

[rubato]

Recently it has become plain that drinking soda as a regular habit is per se harmful in the same way that smoking cigarettes is per se harmful. This being the case it is reasonable to impose a pigovian tax to recover some part of the externalized costs which the sellers of soda have imposed on the rest of us. (It also got 55% of the vote in San Francisco but because tax laws require a 'supermajority', it did not pass this time.)

Coastal California does not have the kind of widespread morbid obesity seen elsewhere in the country, like Portland Oregon. We generally don't see families of fat people buying multiple cases of sodas with their regular grocery purchases like you do in Fred Meyers in Oregon. But we have to begin somewhere dealing with the obesity epidemic and this is a reasonable place to start. California started sooner and has done a lot better in reducing smoking so it is reasonable that we will lead the way with reducing use of sodas.



yrs,
rubato

[Joe Guy]

How does taxing sugary drinks help fight obesity and diabetes?

The argument against the tax in Berkeley includes a statement that the tax money will go to the city's General Fund and "there is no accountability as to how the money is spent and no guarantee that any revenue will actually benefit nutritional programs".

That sounds very typical for government and just another way to get more money to waste.

I have not seen a good argument for the tax.

[Lord Jim]

Good Ol' rube...

Always standing up for nanny state micromanagement of people's lives...*











*unless of course it involves beekeeping....

[rubato]

The idea is that a tax will decrease consumption just as higher cigarette taxes contribute to people smoking less. Where the tax is used is a secondary question.


Yrs,
Rubato

[BoSoxGal]

I'd suggest using the tax to educate about the dangers of the great white evil (sugar) and to promote drinking tap water.

[Jarlaxle]

Americans buy 2 times as much soda as bottled water. So soda produces two times as much trash. Total water consumption has just recently passed soda in volume but that includes non-bottled water.

Yrs,
Rubato

Factually incorrect in many states, including California.

(Now, will rube figure out why...?)

[rubato]

Locally, we have had curb-side recycling for 30 years so little goes into the trash either way.











It does not matter much whether either law passed or not. The most important effect is educational and to start to change widespread and harmful behaviors. The bills moved the debate into a very public arena and induced the soda companies to engage in such obvious rhetorical lies "it will only hurt poor (fat) people" that the ball has been moved ahead either way. As we have shown with effective anti-smoking campaigns education is a key component. Get the message into the public sphere, cut through the noise and get people thinking about it. It is a start.

There will always be some losers pulling back the other way, just as there were people who lied and said smoking is not harmful and forcing others to breath tobacco smoke is ok.


yrs,
rubato

[Lord Jim]

It's a shame we can't tax stupidity...

We could certainly use less of that...

[Sue U]

It's quite unexpected and frankly shocking to see the decline in coffee consumption; given the proliferation of Starbuckses, I would have thought the exact opposite. However, it is heartening that beer is keeping pace with milk.

[Crackpot]

Your problem is you're equating Starbucks with coffee.

[MajGenl.Meade]

It's a shame we can't tax stupidity...

We could certainly use less of that...

I thought that's what a tax on carbonated soft drinks is?

[kristina]

Your problem is you're equating Starbucks with coffee.

Bingo!

[Joe Guy]

It's a shame we can't tax stupidity...

We could certainly use less of that...

I've posted the following graph as a visual aid to your idea...

[oldr_n_wsr]

Is there an educational campaign that some of this tax money is going to? If not it's just a money grab.
Reminds me of the tobacco steelment when NY state got some billions of dollars. The settlement stipulated that the state must use a portion of the money to use for education about teh evils of smoking. Of course the state didn't do that, it just put the money in the general fund. It took the tabacco companies bringing a lawsuit to finally get the state to use some of hte funds for consumer education.

I do not live in berkely nor do I drink soda (unsweetened iced tea is my drink of choice) so it does not affect me. My biggest fear is this gaining momentum.