Keep Food Legal Helps Lead Fight Against NYC's Proposed Beverage Ban

Keep Food Legal has been critical of New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's outrageous proposal to ban many sweetened drinks greater than 16 ounces.

On Tuesday, July 24 Keep Food Legal executive director Baylen Linnekin appeared before the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, the city agency that may adopt the ban, and spoke out against the ban on behalf of Keep Food Legal's members and supporters in New York City and across the country. You can view PowerPoint slides from Linnekin's presentation here.

Keep Food Legal also submitted written comments in opposition to the ban that same day--also on behalf of its members and supporters in New York City and beyond. An excerpt:

Keep Food Legal, on behalf of its members and supporters, opposes the Proposed Amendment of Article 81 (Food Preparation and Food Establishments) of the New York City Health Code, found in Title 24 of the Rules of the City of New York (the “proposed ban”)....

The most obvious negative intended consequence is that the proposed ban would raise the taxes of New Yorkers—and do so in a most undemocratic manner. After all, at its heart the proposed ban is a revenue “bill” to be voted on by an unelected board that is intended to compel some New Yorkers to pay higher sales taxes. This would occur because a purchase of two sixteen-ounce beverages would a cost consumer more than a purchase of one beverage greater than sixteen ounces—and because sales taxes constitute a percentage of each sale and so rise in relation to the overall price of a sale. Mayor Bloomberg, both predicting and promoting the sale of multiple beverages the proposed ban would foster, said last month that when it comes to customers seeking one beverage greater than sixteen ounces, restaurants could instead “serve it in two” purchased cups.

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[T]he proposed ban would restrict food freedom of choice. Mayor Michael Bloomberg opined last month that the right to drink a large soda is not one of the “freedoms.... that the Founding Fathers fought for.” But the proposed ban is (as previously noted) a revenue bill to be voted on by an unelected board. In this way (and others), the proposed ban very much harkens back to those acts of British economic aggression against the American colonies in the 1760s and 1770s—which, like the Sugar Act, nearly always centered on unfairly taxing and restricting food choices—that led the Founding Fathers to fight the American Revolution.

At the close of Tuesday's hearing, Keep Food Legal hosted a fun and fabulous (and well-publicized and well-attended) happy hour and soda salon at the great Northern Spy Food Co., a locavore-friendly eatery in New York City's East Village.

Linnekin has also spoken out against the proposed ban in the media--including on Dennis Miller's nationally syndicated radio show--and devoted two of his recent Reason magazine weekly online columns to the proposed drink ban. You can read those here and here.

What's next for Keep Food Legal when it comes to New York City's proposed ban? Stay tuned. And if you'd like to support our work in this and other areas, we urge you to please become a member of Keep Food Legal.