A new executive order from San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom makes it illegal to sell Coke, Pepsi and other sodas in vending machines:
Newsom’s directive, issued in April but whose practical impacts are starting to be felt now, bars calorically sweetened beverages from vending machines on city property.
That includes non-diet sodas, sports drinks and artificially sweetened water. Juice must be 100 percent fruit or vegetable juice with no added sweeteners. Diet sodas can be no more than 25 percent of the items offered, the directive says.
San Francisco certainly isn’t the first municipality to set nutritional standards for vending machines on public property. The state and at least four counties have adopted or have recommendations for similar policies. Santa Clara County’s policy, adopted in 2008, is not as restrictive as San Francisco’s, allowing up to half of vending machine content to be standard soda. It’s unclear how strict the other policies are.
Extreme but very bold move.
Hopefully, sets an example for sheeple parents to keep their frig free of sugar water for their porker kids.
Maybe future healthcare costs will drop a few percent saving billions.
I say we, the people of Arizona, should boycott San Francisco for their apparent and blatant discriminatory practices against sugary soda.
Yes miss, I would like a marijuana infused soy milk please. What? I need a medical marijuana card? Damn!
The fat fatties will be pissed. In a fatty uproar, they may lose a pound.
Necessary move to minimize costs for the forthcoming “free” universal health care. People cannot be trusted to make the right choices, so government will do it for them.
The next thing will be fat / sugar taxes to penalize people for their choices.
Hello Nanny State!
But government will then need to make exceptions since they don’t want to be discriminatory towards ethnic foods which tend to have higher fats in their diets (i.e. Mexican / Soul foods).
What bullshit. This guy is a total dick.
I have to wonder, is it really the governments job to micro-manage every little decision we make for us? Where does the boundary end? What is the point in banning sugar filled drinks in vending machines when we can still buy them in stores? I don’t like where this is all heading…….
Not sure why all the fuss from the fatties. This merely keeps sugar water drinks away from city property. You can always haul your cooler around or stop by McDonalds.
The more I read about it the more I like it – government action on government property on sound principles. No smoking, no advertisement, no sugar water, no Jesus crucifixions.
Let the free markets supply the sheeple with what they want. I don’t want the government endorsing private enterprises any more than a given religion. California usually leads in stuff like this. Good for them.
9, Dusanmal,
That’s because liberals cannot make up their own minds like Conservatives / Libertarians can. Liberals need government to make decisions for them so that they know what is good for them and what is bad for them.
Without government aid, a Liberal could go crazy being left responsible for their own decisions. 🙂
10, Dallas,
Interesting that you subscribe to putting down others based on physical attributes. What’s next skin color? I thought you liberals were humanists of sorts.
What this merely does (aside from nurturing a Nanny state)is establish more government control over private business. Private businesses give people what they want or they go out of business. Most people don’t want to drink soy milk for lunch. Most people want a Coke / Pepsi.
Conservatives / Libertarians don’t whine about having to bring in their own water or healthy foods from home. Instead, liberal whining leads to legislation to force businesses to comply to their demands so that Liberals get to have their way (regardless of business sense) while everyone else needs to adjust to their standards.
Forcing kids to drink soy milk in a school lunch program may be okay, but forcing well-informed adult citizens to participate in the USSA’s “school lunch” program is going a bit too far. This takes us a step closer.
Didn’t some short little Austrian with a funky mustache try this before?????
Perhaps this is just revenge for the gay-marriage thing. You want to control our private lives, we’ll control yours, too.
Chris rock has a good take on “fatness”
http://youtube.com/watch?v=FDnu-r8AGuE
How come this post wasn’t under the “Nanny State” heading? I mean, isn’t it clear by now that people are going to buy whatever they want at the Quicky Mart, and it’s also obvious that living on that stuff is going to make them eventually swell up and burst like neglected prize pumpkins (er…if you are inclined towards such afflictions…which not everybody _is_ you know, Mr. Mayor).
If the “fatties” can’t self discipline themselves in our “now-we-have-to-resist-abundance” society, I seriously doubt politicians will be able to force it on them, no matter how many health fanatics are banging on their can.
Excuse me, nobody is forcing anyone to drink or not drink anything. If this were a private company, say Apple or Microsoft, banning sugared drinks from vending machines on their property, would there be such an uproar?
Besides, some of us never drink sugared drinks and would prefer to have extra choices in the vending machines. If they get Diet Mt. Dew, I might actually buy one. (Of course, I live in Los Angeles, where the mayor should propose putting Latino news anchor bimbos in the vending machines.)
It appears that this applies only to vending machines. I suspect that you could get a Coke at the City Hall cafeteria, if you were foolish enough to eat there.
Anyway, San Francisco just ain’t the same since they pulled the Rice-A-Roni ads off the cable cars.
I’m with Dallas.
Fatties can still get their cans of sugar to keep that weight … they’ll just have to walk further to get it.
The number of fat people in this country is atrocious.
16, Spsffan,
But the obvious fact is the vending machines are operated by private businesses.
Well apparently not enough of you are making suggestions to the vending machine companies or not enough of you are boycotting the choices you do not like.
FYI, Coca-Cola owns Odawlla Juice as well as Vitamin-Water. Pepsi owns Naked Juice. The healthy alternatives are out there and they are owned by the junk food industry.
I’m presuming, then, that the coffee machine does not have a sweetened option? Tea drinkers. Lemon or milk only. No lumps. Hot chocolate without sugar? Ugh… What are we? Mayans?
Hmeyers said,
“I’m with Dallas.
The number of fat people in this country is atrocious.”
So is the number of control freak a$$holes, but you don’t see me complaining about you and Dallas.
Social engineering that attempts to change personal habits that do not directly affect others will always be doomed to failure. People will change their private lives when they want to not because someone else tries to tell them what to do. In fact, telling someone what to do in their private life often has the opposite effect.
The only purpose of government is to restrain evil, and banksters, monopolists and tyrants, as well as drugs, like excess sugar, fat and salt, are evil.
Well excu-use me too. I grew up around health food fanatics and the seeming religious fixation and proselytizing a lot of them had over it was often comedic.
I always loved ginger ale, but eventually had to give it up and it was no problem for me to learn to enjoy seltzer instead. We live in a prosperous culture and I think people have to deal with it as individuals, not with a lot of neurotic whining and calls for legislation etc.
“In America, even poor people are overweight”
– K. Vonnegut
#18 But the obvious fact is the vending machines are operated by private businesses.
Yes, and under the usual arrangement, they place their machines under contract with the property owners and share the profits. Come to think of it, we had say over what items were put into the snack machine that used to be in my office. Eventually, we (office personnel) voted to get rid of the thing.
As for my preferences in drinks….I guess my taste isn’t very popular..in vending machines. But the diet dew is frequently sold out in the supermarkets. Oh, back when I used to drink Coke (and weighed 60 lbs more than I do now) I would generally pass up the cans/bottles from vending machines. Coke needs to be served over ice in a cup or glass. Otherwise, why bother?
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.
Knee-jerk reactionists may completely miss the fact the city workers are not being forbidden from consuming these unhealthful beverages on city property. These oppressed workers will simply not have the same easy access to certain commercial products that they once had during working hours. Believe it or not, I’ve worked for employers who were even more tyrannical than this, and I didn’t even live in the USSR. I once worked where there was NOT ONE SINGLE VENDING MACHINE!
Yearning for the unfettered freedom to purchase sugary beverages in the workplace is the sort of thing that can start a revolution. Unless that happens, however, freedom-loving conservatives may have to console themselves with the possibility that city workers may work harder and give taxpayers more value for their money if they are not quite so obese. Maybe they’ll even be able to cancel that hallway-widening project that was going to cost the city so much.
#18 Yes, the vending machines are owned by private businesses, who must have permission, in the form of a contract, to place said machines on the property. This is how it works at Apple, Microsoft, Google or local government. It is entirely possible that SF city government is paying the vending companies to place their machines on city property. I know when I worked at a large international technology company, the cafeteria and vending machines were subsidized thru the corporate HR budget.
What next? Banning cigarette machines in city buildings? Oh the humanity!
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.
There should be a federal mandate against the sale of sugar laden beverages and candy in all schools.
I see where the conservative (don’t change nutt’n) sheep are coming from – the old “slippery slope” argument. The fact is, the “no CocaCola today, communism and Stalin tomorrow” argument doesn’t hunt.
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.
#26 Awake’s post is brilliant.
It is megacorps trying to get fatties addicted to a lifestyle involving obesity and mass consumption of carbohydrates.
This is just an act of sticking up for public welfare.
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.
Most of the people complaining in this thread about their right to endless cans of sugar to maintain their overweightness are overlooking other people’s desire to not have their kids born into a world built around the idea of fattening up your kids so sugar-pimps like Coca Cola can sell you $1.50 per bottle blasts of carbohydrates.
Gary, the dangerous infidel said,
“Knee-jerk reactionists may completely miss the fact the city workers are not being forbidden from consuming these unhealthful beverages on city property.”
Of course without any protest, that will be the next step…..
150 calories in a can of Coke
6 cans per day
6 x 150 = 900 calories
900 calories x 365 days = 328,500 calories per year
A pound of fat = 3,000 calories
So 328,500 / 3,000 = 100 pounds of fat.
No one needs the health burden of trying to burn off 328,500 extra calories per year! Switching to diet soda or water avoids tons of calories.
In this case, the right thing happened.