deowll says:

You can’t buy sweet soft drinks but you can buy pot. This is an interesting community to say the least.

There is a decent sized hunk of the American populations that thinks SF is a nut house run by nuts.

Anyone connected to the place automatically has a dubious reputation for sanity.

gypkap says:

I’m a fan of Coca Cola, but I restrict my intake to a can a day, sometimes every other day. I’m not overweight, by the way.

It’s simple: don’t slam sugary drinks all day, and take a walk during your break now and then.

RSweeney says:

Ah liberal fascism unleashed.

Who cares if Gatorade has less sugar than apple juice.

It’s the INTENTIONS that count for libs, not the reality or the actual results.

On to prohibition of everything except karma enhanced foods.

People gotta remember, Coca-Cola was a 6oz serving. Not 32 or 64.

Angry says:

And Gavin Newsom is trying to deep throat a microphone? wow…

And Dallas wishes he was the mike! HAR

bobbo, not a fan of Pop Culture says:

Pedro–you and others are missing a key point. Its the difference between making something legal vs illegal and making something only easily available vs hard to avoid.

Silly to position this as an anti-freedom issue when freedom is exactly what is being advocated.

Gary, the dangerous infidel says:

I have to laugh at all the fuss. When liberals take a position supporting the right of an employer like the city to exert a meager amount of control over what commercial products employees will be able to purchase on work premises, it discombobulates the knee-jerk conservatives so badly that they automatically take the opposite stance, no matter how illogical or inconsistent it might be with conservative philosophy.

Of course, I might have to modify my own stance if historians discover that Hitler rose to power by denying the German workers ready access to vending machines with sugary drinks

Gary, the dangerous infidel says:

#52 Pedro, of course you don’t think it’s funny — you’re the butt of the joke!

Guyver says:

24, Spsffan,

Yes, and under the usual arrangement, they place their machines under contract with the property owners and share the profits.

So you’re saying the mayor is analogous to a property owner and not the citizens?

And how many property owners can make contracts null & void by simply declaring contracts illegal with new legislation?

Oh, and stop using the term Conservative/Libertarian ! I’ve been a Libertarian since 1980. That’s LIBERtarian, as in Liberal, as in classical liberal like Thomas Jefferson. (yes, despite his being a slave owner.) Conservatives is something else all together.

Don’t confuse a Classical Liberal with a Liberal of today. Liberals of today used to be called Progressives (and now they’re bringing that term back because of negativity associated with the term “Liberal”.

Conservatives & Libertarians essentially see eye to eye on government encroachment into the free market.

26, Cap ‘n Kangaroo,

It is entirely possible that SF city government is paying the vending companies to place their machines on city property.

So you’re equating making things illegal on a whim as a contractual agreement? LOL.

27, Awake,

In reality, it is just one small step in wrenching control from mega-corporations and the poisons that they sell us in the search for ever increasing profit regardless of the consequences.

In other words, you cannot take responsibility for your own actions so you need government to dictate the legality of offering things that most people desire.

28, Dallas,

This is a prudent action by city government to take away unhealthy sugar water from city property. The opportunity to change bad habits to good ones is worth the small risk of Stalin taking over the US.

In other words, you’re a proponent of abridged individual liberties because you don’t trust people to take responsibility for themselves therefore government must do it for them. That’s sheeple talk.

29, Hmeyers,

There is little difference between this and social pressure on McDonald’s to end the “supersize” culture or getting other companies to remove transfat from their products.

There is a HUGE difference. You’re talking about Free Market effects from social pressure versus government forcing lifestyle engineering through legislation onto private businesses. If people truly did not want those products, they wouldn’t buy them.

31, Hmeyers,

In this case, the right thing happened.

Just because you take no responsibility for your own actions doesn’t mean the rest of us can’t take responsibility for our own. That’s why liberals need government so badly. You can’t survive in the real world without some authoritative direction.

32, Srgothard,

So much for “my body, my life, my right to decide.”

Nice way to point out liberal hypocrisy.

34, Awake,

I wouldn’t mind a fixed tax on “unhealthy food”, as defined by a nationally recognized board of physicians.

The difference is a Libertarian / Conservative would know what is already unhealthy and wouldn’t need another government tax program to point out the obvious.

Of you think about it, it is the ‘conservative’ thing to do… you want to eat wrong… go ahead;

Wanting to eat healthy is not a liberal thing. People who desire to eat healthy cover the entire political spectrum. The difference is the Libertarian / Conservative healthy eaters don’t demand legislation to point out the obvious or to shove healthy eating down the throats of those who prefer not to.

38, Gary,

Even if you want to consider this a strictly arbitrary decision, and not one that is made for sound health reasons, should an employer be helpless to exert control over the work environment? Is it unreasonable for an employer to place restrictions on commerce with external vendors during the workday?

The mayor is a public servant and not an employer in the way you’re generalizing. I would not equate the office of a mayor to that of private business.

39, Hmeyers,

It isn’t funny that “conservatives” argue that money should be well spent, that people should use discipline and good judgment — then they come out in droves supporting the right to be obese?

The American way would be to allow people to pursue happiness (however way each person chooses to define it).

Philosophically you simply disagree with that and strongly feel that people should not be allowed to super size their meals or get a double quarter-pounder.

What you ultimately stand for is government regulating people’s livelihoods because you feel that most people do not do what is in their own best interest therefore they should not have the freedom to pursue what they makes them happy.

The question you should be asking yourself is why do you personally feel you need government to help you eat healthy? Are you too stupid to understand that eating lots of fast food isn’t in your best interest unless government makes laws against fast food?

40, Dallas,

Surely you’d agree that large institutions, including government, offer a unique opportunity to set example towards a common good.

A public office for the people is not the same as a private business. So no, you shouldn’t compare the two as though they are equal in every way.

43, Gypkap,

I’m a fan of Coca Cola, but I restrict my intake to a can a day, sometimes every other day. I’m not overweight, by the way.

It’s simple: don’t slam sugary drinks all day, and take a walk during your break now and then.

The liberals here cannot restrain themselves unless government makes drinking more than one sugary drink a day illegal. They don’t know how to take responsibility for their own actions.

44, Mextli, Agreed.

49, Bobbo,

Pedro–you and others are missing a key point. Its the difference between making something legal vs illegal and making something only easily available vs hard to avoid.

Silly to position this as an anti-freedom issue when freedom is exactly what is being advocated.

When government steps in to forbid a private business from operating within a free market, that is anti-freedom.

Now the law may be well-intentioned, but it’s using force to push the mayor’s will onto others when it’s quite clear the reason why those vending machines sell what they do is because that’s what people want.

This is a public office. This is not the same as a well-intentioned private business owner who chooses to limit access to junk food.

Guyver says:

56, Gary,

Companies DO NOT have the right to fill their vending machines with whatever they want unless their contract with the city specifically gives them that right (which it clearly does not).

Depends on if there’s a clause in the contract for that. Odds are very few companies bother to dictate to the vendor what will be in the vending machine. Most vending machine companies are happy to take suggestions and most will usually offer what they can to make the customers happy (a free market tends to have this effect).

The vast majority of private businesses having them allow their employees to vote with their wallets rather than micro-manage a vendor.

What the mayor is doing however is clearly NOT contractual so your point is moot. He’s making things offered by vendors illegal rather than allowing citizens / city employees vote with their wallets.

BigBoyBC says:

I worked for a major school district in California that banned all sodas from on-campus vending machines, replaced the sodas with fruit juices.

Most of the replacements had higher calories per serving that the soda, and sales from the machines dropped 70%.

The kids just brought their sodas from home or bought them off campus. By the way, the district didn’t ban the kids from selling candy as fundraisers off campus.

With thinking like that, know wonder the district is broke and the kids illiterate.