I’m obviously against the beverage tax, but this is economic hostage-taking. Pepsi is a proud supporter of pillaging the American public through taxes, as long as THEIR product isn’t taxed. They were so laughably pro-tax-and-spend that their logo was altered to synergize with Obama’s.
The beverage tax will apply to Pepsis sold in Baltimore, and only to those sold in Baltimore, regardless of whether their plant is in Baltimore or not. This is reverse political extortion; they want all the spending programs, they just want only YOU to be the one taxed to pay for it.
My guess is they were already going to move the plant. Since as you note the tax is independent of the location of their plant, it doesn’t make much economic sense to move the plant just to punish the city.
Now, if they had threatened this before the city tax was passed, and used it as a bargaining chip to get the city to NOT pass the tax, it might make sense now to follow through, just because a threat is only good if you are seen as willing to follow through. But i don’t rmeember reading about any such threat.
So it seems more likely that, because of economic factors, they decided to shut down the plant, and figured if they were doing so, they could gain some goodwill in baltimore if they blamed the city for it, so the fired workers can have someone else to blame instead of just getting all their friends to drink Coca-Cola products.