Miles's blog

I don’t generally whine about the “nanny state” laws government pass to protect us from ourselves.  I fully realize that most people are idiots who, if left to their own devices, would drive without seatbelts, text while driving, and drive with their kids on their laps.  I love no-smoking laws, seeing health department grades for restaurants, and knowing that defibrillators are present in public buildings.  I am fine with the removal of trans fats from fast food, and making restaurants post nutrition information in a conspicuous place.  Let the government protect me from myself, I do a damn poor job of it.

But now the mayor of New York is going too far.  He proposes to ban the sales of soft drinks in sizes of more than 16 ounces.  Bloomberg is on a mission to make America healthier. (To Bloomberg, New York is America).  He said that too many people decry the obesity epidemic but few do anything about it.  (I question the use of the word “epidemic” for something which is neither an illness nor contagious.  The fact that millions of people choose to get and stay fat—myself included—is not the same as millions being felled by the flu or suffering from yellow fever.  But the media and even health professionals call it an epidemic, so who am I to say they are wrong?)  New York, Bloomberg asserts, will be the roadblock-in-chief.  Sugary drinks, everyone concedes, are a major source of the calories leading to obesity—for me, too—so restricting their sale, Bloomberg feels, will deny people this source of sugar.

When I read this my first thought was “You’ll have to pry my Big Gulp from my cold, dead fingers.”  How outrageous, I thought, that he will keep little gulps legal but prevent me from loading up on cold refreshment on hot days.  (And if you have been on the East Coast in the summer you know how humid it gets and how much you need to drink.)  But upon reading the fine print I saw that Big Gulps remain legal, while other sales would be prohibited.  Like most things, the devil is in the details and this plan was truly hatched in the hell populated by those whose small minds lack vision.

Mayor Bloomberg is proposing that restaurants, food carts, movie theaters, sports arena, and the like—in other words places that sell food to be consumed on the premises or immediately—be allowed to sell sweetened soft drinks in containers no larger than 16 ounces.  Sales of unsweetened drinks will have no limits.  Fruit juices (defined as containing 70 percent or more of actual juice) will be unlimited but fruit drinks with sugar (like Sunny D, I guess) will be covered.  The article did not talk about sports drinks like Gatorade but I assume they will be restricted, as I assume will energy drinks like Red Bull.  Unsweetened coffe can be sold in any size, but lattes and frappucinos would be covered by the new law.  So you can buy as big an unsweetened coffee as you like and pour in the sugar packets all you want, but lattes are restricted.

Big Gulps, however, survive (although in theory only in Manhattan because there are almost no 7-Elevens) because grocery stores and convenience stores are not included in the regulation.  And while food carts are covered, newsstands are not.

Here’s a good one.  Fast food places like Chipotle that just give out cups and have soda fountains can still do that, allowing for unlimited refills, as long as the cups are not more than 16 ounces.  So McDonalds, which fills the drinks themselves, will be at a serious competitive disadvantage. 

Bloomberg seems to view this like a businessman.  If you want more than 16 ounces you have to buy two drinks.  This will make them more expensive so people will be motivated to either drink less or buy diet drinks.  I suppose that is true, but if newsstands and convenience stores are not covered I think in large part he is merely shifting the market.  Sit down restaurants I think can still give refills, and so will fast food.  Others will merely lose business to newsstands.  Movie theaters and sports arenas are the places most likely to see a shift to diet drinks as there is a major disincentive to standing in line to get more and few people will want to hold onto a second drink to drink it while warm an hour into the movie.  I just don’t think all in all this will work to any significant degree.

What is next?  Limits on sales of cupcakes (found a really good place next to Grand Central), cheesecake (no place beats Veniero’s) and chocolate chip cookies?  Will he outlaw Supersizing my fries and restrict sales of footlong hot dogs?  I would prefer to see a law criminalizing taking the elevator one floor up or two floors down.  Or prohibiting cab rides of less than half a mile.

If America is serious about childhood obesity Halloween should be outlawed.  The government and others are spending millions of hours and billions of dollars trying to figure out how to reduce sugar consumption in schools, but once a year we encourage everyone, even curmudgeons like me, to give out the single worst kind of sugary treat to even the smallest children.  You can, of course, give out apples or Trident gum or some such if you want your house t.p.’d, but the culture of America is to be supplying bigger and bigger size Milky Ways.  Kids certainly stock up on millions of empty calories each October 31, pretty much undoing a lot of the other efforts.  Where does Bloomberg stand on Halloween?  He claims he is willing to make tough choices.  Fine.  If you are going to take away my 24-ounce Coke, then take away those urchins’ grocery bags full of Hershey’s.