Mayor Bloomberg proposes super-sized soda ban

That's what you get for electing a Republican mayor.

Do you remember when Rudy Giuliani threatened to close down the Brooklyn Museum because he was offended by a painting.

It's those Republican mayors...

I'm afraid your "comrades" will be too fat to get off their butts to fight that revolution.

BTW, have you now gone from being a zen socialist to being a communist, comrade Hawkeye?

He was a R.I.N.O., a fake, a charlatan.
He was always a liberal and he never denied it.
He used to request people to vote for him on THE LIBERAL LINE.
Censorship is anathema to true principles of Republican liberty.

NYC mayors have no jd to close any museum.

He was very comfortable in stabbing George Pataki in the back
(almost cost him the election) when he was first running for governor.
Giuliani was franticly campaigning for the incumbent Democrat Mario Cuomo.





David

So if you and the good major does not approve of the life styles of others adults you are of the opinion that give you the right to use state power to take away their rights!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ok to all readers of this thread Firefly had come completely out of hiding she and her like think that they should have the power to control your life if they do not care for your eating and drinking habits.

Thanks you Firefly for showing what a dangerous idea this ban is even if at the moment it only deal with soda containers sizes.

Once wonder if you think the government should take away my passport so I can not travel to Cancun any longer due to you not approving of my partying there.

Agree completely............

As you had already indicate this is just the beginning and they are already had move into the hospitals and pressuring mothers to breast feed.

There is no logical end point to a nanny state and not approving of my behaviors in regard to my health when I am traveling abroad would mean that the nanny state would take alway my rights to travel outside of the borders of the nanny state at least by your and the mayor logic.

Hawkeye perhaps we should consider setting up committees of correspondences as the founders did as a first step to reclaiming our freedoms from a government that had gone insane.

As the Declaration of Independence stated the people have a right in fact a duty to overthrow a government that taken away their freedoms.

Suggest we set up websites on the darknet for the use of the committees.

You know I am even feeling slightly bad in confining one of my cats to my bedroom and feeding her very costly diet cat food instead of what she prefer to eat.

The little dear had however gotten so heavy in her old age that she was having problems getting up and down from chairs and so on.

To interfere with my cat judgment on how must she should eat and weight however is not in the same class as limiting an adult human.

I can just see the good mayor however having everyone that is overweight placed in a cell and feed a low cal diet until they had lost the weight as I am doing to my cat.

Once one step is allow in that direction there is no logical end point for a nanny/police state.

With special note that the good mayor have found a way to placed such polices in effect that the voters are powerless to veto.

I don't care if you eat yourself into a stupor, or drink yourself into one either--and the government definitely doesn't care if you do that . You have the right to make a complete idiot of yourself--and you exercise that right quite often.

But, since you admittedly tend to both eat and drink excessively, when provided with access to large amounts, at good value, you are, indeed, a living example of the fact that portion size drives consumption and that, when provided with more, people eat and drink more.

So, you of all people, should be able to understand the insidious, and manipulative, marketing strategy behind offering the public super-sized sugary drinks, and how it contributes to the public health problem of obesity. You should be able to understand that, given your first-hand experience, but, unfortunately, you appear too cognitively limited to be able to do that.

It's really a pity you can't understand what you read. Your impaired comprehension causes you to misinterpret and distort everything. Coupled with your notoriously poor written language abilities, you are just at a terrible disadvantage in a discussion forum that, at a minimum, requires you to be able to accurately interpret what you read. No wonder so much goes right over your head.

Your fantasies about what you think I've said, while interesting, reflect only your own paranoia that the government is trying to control you, treating you like a child and not an adult, and will assign you a nanny to change your adult diapers. And, in your warped delusion, I represent that fantasy "police state" for you. I think you have definitely moved into the moderate stage of senility, and might need that nanny in the near future, but don't count on the government to supply her--Medicare doesn't cover that sort of long-term care.

the state is right to use the power of persuasion to get me to eat and drink what it wants me to in the quantities it wants me to, but it does not have the right to outlaw the choices it does not like. portion control laws are an abuse of government, and should be stopped now.

Sorry that bullshit as my wife and I decide for ourselves how must of that to do and many times we had picked one week on the pig out plan and the next on the cook for yourself plan during our Cancun vacations.

We have no damn need for the government to monitor or control our eating or drinking behaviors.

Hell we have the financial resources to pig out 365 days of the year if we care to in or out of the US and right now I am of my own free am eating a salad and drinking a diet tea.

There is no indication that the damn government can picked a better overall diet for myself and my wife.

In fact the government is running into problems in trying to do so at the high school levels with them now capping the total cals at around 700 for meal servings in schools and starving to death the students athletics who burn far more cals as a result.

Not to mention that the allow food choices are so out of tune with the students desires a large percent of that 700 cals are ending up in the trash cans.

Second comments as far as large foods portions when eating out my wife and I either take enough food home to have another meal or we share one such serving between the two of us.

Once more my wife and I do not need the NYC health department to made those choices for us.

Our pigging out is confined to around four to five percents of any given year.

Third comment the Cancun resort that we normally go to have a wonderful gym overlooking the beach and ocean and we try to get an hour or so a day in even when we are doing the pig out part of the vacation.

I always find it kind of amusing however that most of the time except for the employees we have the gym all to ourselves.

Hawkeye having the calories and salt content etc of foods listed on the walls of fast food places is also a fine idea so those who order a large cup of non-diet soda can see the calories he or she is ordering.

But telling someone that they can not order a large serving is outrageous misused of state power with special note when it is done in a way that the voters have no way to punish those who have done so.

Providing information is not good enough for the police state zeolots, because very few people even want to look, and fewer change their minds. Like with all abusers these people are not satisfied till they get what they want, and of course what the victims want does not matter

Hawkeye there can not be any question this is the actions of a police state as it was and is being done over the clear wishes of the citizens.

No old fashion South American dictatorship could had done a better job of forcing this down it citizens throats.

There got to be some reigning in of the power of the Health Department especially given the very great police and others power they have anytime they feel like declaring a health emergency in the city.

We clearly can not trust them in small matters so how in the hell can we go on trusting them with the far greater powers they can assume at whim?

The board was fully aware of the public opinion on this matter and did not care before they pass this ban.



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http://www.csnews.com/top-story-packaged_beverages-over_60_000_new_yorkers_sign_petition_against_soda_ban_-61538.html

Over 60,000 New Yorkers Sign Petition Against Soda Ban


NEW YORK -- More than 60,000 New Yorkers have signed a petition against Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg's proposed "soda ban" on containers of sugar-sweetened beverages that are larger than 16 ounces at delis, restaurants, movie theaters, street carts, sports arenas, corner stores and bodegas, according to the petition's disseminator.

The New Yorkers for Beverage Choices coalition of restaurants, movie theaters, New York businesses and citizens, which is still collecting signatures across the city's five boroughs, is encouraging all New Yorkers to file a comment with the Department of Health before a scheduled public hearing on the proposal.

"These numbers are a testament to the fact that New Yorkers feel this proposal is arbitrary, ineffective and overzealous," said New Yorkers for Beverage Choices' spokesman Eliot Hoff. "New Yorkers just aren't going to accept government dictating what they are allowed to drink, and in what quantities. It's not what New Yorkers want or need. And you have to wonder what's next -- popcorn? Pizza?"

Henry Calderon, president of the East Harlem Chamber of Commerce, said instead of helping small-business owners through the recession, the mayor's misguided proposal will target the small-business owner with additional regulations. "Mom-and-pop shops are struggling to survive; we cannot force them to act as mother and father to their customers, policing what they eat and drink," Calderon stated.

The coalition also points to several recent polls and surveys (one conducted by TV station NY1 and Poughkeepsie, N.Y.-based Marist College) finding that New Yorkers oppose the proposal to limit the size of a soft drink to 16 ounces.

"We all want a healthier New York, but this just isn't the way to go about it," observed Brooklyn Councilwoman Letitia James. "My constituents and people across this city understand the need for real solutions that take into account the socioeconomic landscape of this city and the complexities of people's food choices. We need better education and funding for health programs, not gimmicks."

Along with 62,344 individuals, 675 businesses fearful of the measure's potential impact on their bottom lines have joined the coalition, which believes that the proposal disproportionately affects small businesses, pitting them against neighboring grocery and convenience stores.

I actually don't agree with that entirely--you're giving the state more power than I would. I think the state is obligated to provide you with the best possible information on healthful food choices, and possibly, a guideline as to amounts for a balanced diet, and to provide you with valid medical reasons for wanting to maintain a healthy weight, and tips for doing that. But the choice of what to do with that information, and the particular choices of what to eat and drink, and quantities, are entirely up to you, and should remain entirely up to you.

The government can only more directly control what you eat when you are eating in a government-run facility, like a public school, municipal hospital, or a correctional facility--there the government can control the range of options, because you're eating their food. And, until fairly recently, I think the government, on all levels, did a very lousy job of providing the healthy meals they promote to the public when they did the feeding of the public. The obesity epidemic has been a wake-up call for the government in that regard, and there has been a definite attempt to improve the healthful quality of school lunches, and the appeal of such food, and to educate children about healthy food choices.

And now, someone like Bloomberg is tackling municipal hospitals and will try to improve the healthful quality of the food in the vending machines and cafeterias of the City hospitals under his control. Finally, the government is not being hypocritical, at least in New York City, it's actually trying to practice what it's been preaching all along by trying to feed and offer people healthier food--but Bloomberg seems, unfortunately, rather unique in trying to use his power to bridge that hypocrisy gap. He is genuinely concerned about public health, and pours tons of his own personal money into causes to further public health, like fighting the tobacco industry, and, in return, he gets ridiculed for his efforts with labels like "nanny Bloomberg". I think we need more nanny Bloombergs running the public school cafeterias and municipal hospital cafeterias in our cities--we need more elected officials who really care about public health, and who make real efforts to improve it, by making sure the food they serve in their own municipal facilities represents healthy options.

I think the government should exercise it's influence, and control, where it can, on the food industry, rather than the consumer, to try to get them to modify unhealthful amounts of health-damaging ingredients, like artificial trans-fans, excessively high salt, excessively high fats, the portion sizes of bottled and canned sugary drinks, etc., so the consumer is provided with better choices. And I think they can, and should, out-law harmful additives, such as artificial trans-fats, which Bloomberg did in New York City--those are things the consumer has no control over, but which the government can influence. And Bloomberg is currently working with the food service industry to try to get them to exercise voluntary control over excessive salt in food--which they are not entirely unwilling to do.

I think the super-sized portion control falls into that category--it's much more a direct attempt, by government, to control deleterious marketing tactics of the food service industry than it is an attempt to control consumer behavior or consumer choice, which is why I don't see this new regulation as an abuse of government power. I think it's a form of consumer protection, something the government has been engaged for a long time. It's not limiting consumer choice of a product, or limiting the amount of any product the consumer can purchase and ingest, which is why I don't agree with how you see this "ban"--which actually doesn't ban anything. It's aim is to try to limit the marketing practices of the food service vendor, so they aren't actively promoting and encouraging excessive intake of a potentially harmful substance, which has virtually no nutritional value, and which ultimately contributes to a public health problem.

If you want to argue that the government might be abusing the rights of the food service vendor, or damaging the business of the push-cart vendor who can no longer sell 20 oz bottles of soda, and is dependent on the bottlers to supply him with a 16 oz alternative, I think I might agree with you. But that is an issue to be decided in a court, if those aggrieved parties decide to pursue the matter legally. Maybe the City is acting legally within its rightful authority, maybe it's not. In the past, the City withstood legal challenges from the tobacco industry over it's smoking bans, and from McDonald's over the issue of posting calorie counts in it's restaurants--the City won those battles, and they set precedents in doing so. And the food service industry did not come up with a substantial legal objection which would have gotten this current soda ban scraped before it was approved, so it remains to be seen if they can come up with one now. But it's an issue to be decided in court, not in this thread.

I am well aware of the "slippery slope" argument concerning government moves like this, and government intrusion, and I share your concerns in that regard. But, in this particular instance, there is a reasonable argument to be made that the food vendors are hawking a harmful product when an individual serving size exceeds certain limits. That issue too might be challenged in a court, we just have to see. Right now, I tend to see the super-sized ban as a creative use of already existing government power to try to curb business marketing practices that contribute to a public health problem for both the City and individual citizens, and I do think that's a worthy aim.

Prior to coming up with this super-sized ban, Bloomberg had pursued other options--he worked with the former governor about trying to tax all bottles of sugary beverages, an idea that kicked up even more flack and was discarded, but which might have been more effective if the aim was to try to diminish soda consumption. And he also tried to get the federal government to disallow the use of food stamps for the purchase of the bottled sugary junk, but the Agriculture department nixed that idea. Personally, I think that one was a good idea, I think food stamps should be used for food and beverages that have some nutritional value and/or no harmful effects, because buying the junk diminishes the purchasing power that could be used to get healthful decent food, and, in addition, obesity tends to be a particular problem for the more disadvantaged groups who receive food stamps, but the feds don't agree.

So this ban wasn't really Bloomberg's first choice in approaching the problem, but it's the best he could do.

I have not been to NYC in over 30 years so I can't say for sure that the soda distributors and/or retailers are not supplying the quantities
desired by the people, or the vending snacks wanted by the people, but I do know that I have never seens such idiotic retail practices in my lifetime.

There was loads of flack over Bloomberg's smoking bans too--and those were true bans. They were accepted too, and now such bans are commonplace, but they weren't when Bloomberg introduced them--he's been a trailblazer in getting bans like that.

The super-sized ban does not ban any product, not does it limit the consumers choice of a product, nor does it limit how much of that product they can purchase and ingest. It really shouldn't be called a "ban".

Those "what about pizza, what about popcorn" cries are also scare tactics being hyped by the food and beverage industry. The New Yorkers for Beverage Choices is a front group for that industry, and it's not a grassroots citizen's movement of protest--and they are all about distorting this plan to drum up opposition. And unlike pizza, or popcorn, or hot dogs, the product in question has no nutritional value, and the sugar content it contains can be downright harmful to health when it is concentrated in an outrageously larged sized "single serving". So individual serving-size control, for this particular type of product, makes a great deal of sense from a public health perspective.

And, we are more accurately talking about serving-size control, rather than portion control with this regulation. The control is on the food service vendor to limit the amount he offers to the public as a single serving. There is no "portion control", or limitation, being foisted on the consumer in terms of how much he can ingest, the consumer can still ingest as much as he wants, and he determinea his own "portion".

But, the proposal has already passed. And, in case you haven't noticed, there are no massive citizen demonstrations of protest going on in the New York City streets right now, nor is there a movement afoot to impeach the mayor over this.

Something tells me that the people of NYC are much more intelligent about this than you are, and much more sane and sensible in correctly assessing it.

If there are legal grounds for the food service industry to object to this regulation, it will wind up in court. But they couldn't find those legal grounds prior to this proposal passing, so it remains to be seen what they can come up with, if anything.

Your personal rantings on this issue are meaningless. You don't even live in New York City. If the people of NYC didn't want a mayor who used his influence to discourage practices deleterious to public heath, they wouldn't have re-elected him to a third term, because he clearly has been engaging in such "nanny" work since first becoming mayor. They don't need you to sound the alarm for them--you are acting as though they are children who can't think for themselves or make their own choices, or see what's wrong for them. Tsk, tsk, it seems you are doing exactly what you accuse the government of doing, "nanny BillRM".

The people of New York City can deal with this all by themselves, without your help.

So it ok to overrule the clear will of the people by an unelected board under the theory that sooner or later the people will come around to the government way of thinking?

Interesting society you seem to wish to live under but is surely not a free society were the will of the people is respected and the government deride it powers from consent of the people.

In fact it is anything but................

As far as the people of New York re-electing the mayor I do not think that they was planning on electing a dictator instead of a mayor but maybe I am wrong and they did wish for instead of big brother a big father that would tell them how big of a soda container they can order as would a parent and also tell the women in the hospitals how they should feed and care for their newborns.

There sure is no respect at all for the people will in New York city government at the moment.