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."
Courts? Now there’s a joke. Most of the “Courts” have either been bought and paid for, owe their positions to liberal Dimocraps, are driven by personal agendas, are crooked or are just plain anti-Constitutional.
Their reasoning goes something along the lines that obese people are costing the taxpayers in health care costs and by restricting the sizes of sodas, they will cause obesity rates to drop, hence less burden on the taxpayers. (Not that they really care about the taxpayers. Whatever money this does save, assuming any money will be saved, they will spend on something else)
When are buffet restaurants going to be illegal? Will people be put in jail for going back for seconds?
“NY and CA need to secede”
It’d all be cool if they ever decided to _succeed_ at something besides graft and debt.
I saw a news report on how Japan is now measuring the waists of everyone over 40. If your waist is too big, you have to pay more for the national health insurance. Or the employer does, and you get penalized by the employer.
No servings of meat over 3 ounces as has been demonstrably proven the body can absorb 5-10 ounces in an hour.
So it would generous to allow you to eat twice as much as you can reasonably absorb.
So Let it Be Written, So Let it Be Done.
That would be an interesting constitutional question!
Can a state be so incompetently run that it is kicked out of the Union.
Are the citizens of New York really going to let themselves be dominated by the State like this?
Tyrannical bullshit such as this, fomented by our rulers, makes me ashamed of the people we elect to represent us.
Petty Tyrants like Bloomberg are the scum of the earth, and they should be ridiculed and burned in effigy, if not tarred and feathered.
This sort of authoritarian nonsense is antithetical to minimal, non-intrusive republican government, and I can only hope that one day we all live in an America where such asinine thinking simply doesn't occur.
Education, not legislation.
Busybody Bloomberg, his health board, and their ilk need to be repeatedly and systematically soaked with Sprite from Super Big Gulps, or something.
Every time Bloomberg walks out in public he should be terrified that someone's gonna soda-fy him.
C'mon, New Yorkers, show some guts! It will always be an "accident", of course. Things happen. Drinks spill...
” I saw a news report on how Japan is now measuring the waists of everyone over 40 “
Untrue .
We know that isn’t going to happen.
Thanks for the ping!
'Heal the planet' given as an excuse to strip humans of their rights
Result >> people will buy 2 16oz sodas, consume 32oz instead of 20oz and generate more plastic garbage.
I should make Blooming Idiot drink a 32-ouncer after I’ve filtered it through my kidneys.
courts are where you find some real tyrants these days
Now that’s really the best question. I’d like to nominate
several coastal states for expulsion.
Can you say...two for one?
Can you say...free refills?
Ways to circumvent this law aside, it's still extremely offensive that this turd thinks that he somehow has the authority to legislate this much control over people's lives in the first place.
I know.
Slippery slope.
It used to be we turned away people for not having med insurance. Personal responsibility can be harsh, but I do think it is the best way for us.
Of course they’ll “uphold” it. It’s a commie ‘RAT nanny state thing. Like ‘RAT politicians, “judges” know what is good for us and what is bad.
My sources:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/13/world/asia/13fat.html?pagewanted=all
http://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2008/06/04/japan-cracks-down-on-waistlines_print.html
“One regulation, effective in April requires all citizens over the age of 40 to have their waists measured every year. If a man’s waist is more than 33.5 inches or a woman’s more than 35.5 inches, they are considered at risk and referred for counseling and close monitoring. The government is also requiring companies to slim down their workers or face higher payments into the national insurance program.”
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