Posted on 09/16/2012 6:37:15 PM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
Legal challenges to New York City's ban on sodas larger than 16 ounces are unlikely to be successful, and the ban could spark similar moves in other cities around the country, according to experts.
Thursday, after the city's board of health formally prohibited restaurants from selling sodas larger than 16 ounces after March 12, 2013, organizations around New York City said they would consider suing the city to get the ban overturned.
Laura Palantone, a spokesperson for New York City Beverage Choices, a group against the ban, says the organization will "carefully review the regulation and explore our options now that [the ban] has passed." In a press release issued Thursday, the group said they are "exploring all avenues to challenge the board's ruling, including in court."
But John Cromer, a lawyer with Burns White who has represented food and beverage companies, says New York City likely has the authority to issue the ban, which was championed by Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
"States, and cities for that matter, have wide authority to regulate public health—smoking bans are a good example, as are motorcycle helmet and car seatbelt requirements," he says. Most likely, organizations will try to argue that the city has no "rational basis" for enacting the ban.
"You can buy as many 16 ounce soft drinks as you want, you can hold a 16 ounce soda in each hand," he says. "They can try to argue that the ban won't do anything to promote public health or argue that it might not reduce obesity, as the mayor is claiming."
Those opposed could also try to say the ban attempts to pre-empt the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's responsibilities or say that the ban violates the U.S. Commerce Clause that regulates trading between states.
"My gut reaction is that the [Commerce Clause] argument has less of a chance of working than arguing there's no rational basis because they're not regulating the sale of soft drinks or soda in the state, they're just limiting what the consumption size can be," he says.
New York City has enacted a number of anti-obesity campaigns over the past few years: Officials there banned transfats from restaurants in 2008 and required fast food restaurants to post calorie counts. Experts say that if the ban is successful at curbing obesity, other cities and states could try to enact similar measures.
"New York City's policy to limit the size of sodas is no longer a local story because it has spurred a national conversation about the health consequences of sugary drinks," Andrew Cheyne, a University of California-Berkley professor who studies the soda industry, says. "This matters because we know from the history of tobacco control that when the public understood the health harms from cigarettes, the industry's main product, they viewed the marketing or political actions taken by the tobacco companies much more critically," making them more likely to support a ban.
Cromer agrees: "New York City has been very progressive on these types of health issues, and a lot of these public health concerns seem to originate there," he says. Though a state would have the authority to enact a similar ban, it's likely similar bans will be enacted on a local level.
"Bloomberg only needed a few votes on a mayor-appointed board," he says. "It's much more difficult to do on a state level."
Nanny State PING!
Reason number 10,865 not to live there.
Assuming the ban does go through, I’d like to see the obesity statistics six months to a year later. Supposedly 60% of New Yorkers are currently overweight. I’ll bet the number rises.
It’s like drugs. People who want the sugary drinks will find some way to get them.
This is the dumbest thing I have ever heard. Couldn’t you just buy two or three small drinks???
NY and CA need to secede.
I’m assuming that you can still buy a 40-ouncer of malt liquor in NYC?
So a 15 oz Scotch on the rocks will still be legal?
Since when did “public” health mean you can tell me what to do? “Public health” deals with communicable diseases, not what I am doing to myself. Sugary drinks, smoking, or transfats DO NOT cause health issues except to those consuming the products - therefore none are PUBLIC HEALTH issues.
What has Bloominidiot done to stem the spread of AIDS or hepatitis? Now those are true public health issues, as they are communicable diseases..........has he banned anything that causes those true public health issues?
When I go through the drive through and they mistakenly give me one of these things, these absolute monstrosities which don’t fit into any category of food, I just laugh and give it back, I don’t care if I’ve paid for it through some meal deal.
It’s ridiculous.
When someone asked me the other day re: German socialized medicine vis a vis Obamacare and the potential benefits, the answer was a very quick: Germans take care of their nutrition the way people in this country used to. We don’t have the resources they do to manage the plethora of obese people who won’t take care of themselves and who want the medical system to do it for them as they refuse to comply with medical orders and advice.
We have a thirty six percent obesity rate. That alone should take us out of the running for having a socialized medicine system, not to mention that the German system is not at all satisfactory.
And the waddling women I see regularly carrying these ginormous sodas around are atrocious, though they won’t make it past 65, they’ll utilize tremendous resources on the way.
Still, I enjoy using my choice to laugh and give the thing back.
I don’t need Mooch, who can’t dress to save her life or reputation and whose fat form I wish to never see, telling me nor Mayor Bloomberg telling me I’m too stupid to know how to take care of my nutrition.
They can check their own behaviors.
When I go through the drive through and they mistakenly give me one of these things, these absolute monstrosities which don’t fit into any category of food, I just laugh and give it back, I don’t care if I’ve paid for it through some meal deal.
It’s ridiculous.
When someone asked me the other day re: German socialized medicine vis a vis Obamacare and the potential benefits, the answer was a very quick: Germans take care of their nutrition the way people in this country used to. We don’t have the resources they do to manage the plethora of obese people who won’t take care of themselves and who want the medical system to do it for them as they refuse to comply with medical orders and advice.
We have a thirty six percent obesity rate. That alone should take us out of the running for having a socialized medicine system, not to mention that the German system is not at all satisfactory.
And the waddling women I see regularly carrying these ginormous sodas around are atrocious, though they won’t make it past 65, they’ll utilize tremendous resources on the way.
Still, I enjoy using my choice to laugh and give the thing back.
I don’t need Mooch, who can’t dress to save her life or reputation and whose fat form I wish to never see, telling me nor Mayor Bloomberg telling me I’m too stupid to know how to take care of my nutrition.
They can check their own behaviors.
Today I heard an interesting liberal rebuttal to the soda ban. Don’t ban it - people will break the law or find work arounds. Instead, tax ALL soda to decrease consumption, generating revenue while improving public health.
Since “public health” turned into “free” medical care.
Don’t challenge it in the courts. Challenge it in the streets.
3/4 of the damned thing is ice anyway.
It’s fantastic that Bloomie realizes NYers aren’t capable of making basic choices on personal health.
It’s horrible that Bloomie thinks these same people should be allowed to vote for President and Congress.
Scary, isn’t it?
Great start Mayor!...but lets cut to the chase and get this deal accomplished!!...
Ban men's waist sizes bigger the 36 and dress sizes bigger then 14 for everyone in or visiting NY....Was that so hard??
Great start Mayor!...but lets cut to the chase and get this deal accomplished!!...
Ban men's waist sizes bigger the 36 and dress sizes bigger then 14 for everyone in or visiting NY....Was that so hard??
Go down to a NYC China-town restaurant and order a meal and they just don’t charge you sales tax, they just ignore that law.
Next is liquor cannot be sold in containers of more than one ounce.
It actually has a limit and a precedent.
the 32 ouncers where available before and never challenged when created.
The issue is a sugary substance and they are limiting the substance by fascistic dictate.
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