Soda Wars: Business Groups Sue San Francisco To Defend First Amendment

A trio of business groups is suing San Francisco to protect the First Amendment rights of companies that sell and market sugary drinks.

On 24 July, the California Retailers Association, the American Beverage Association and the California State Outdoor Advertising Association filed a lawsuit to prevent mandatory warning labels on soda ads. The San Francisco ordinance, which was passed in June by nine votes to zero would cover soda ads on billboards, buses, transit shelters, posters and stadiums.

The plaintiffs argue “the city is trying to ensure that there is no free marketplace of ideas, but instead only a government-imposed, one-sided public ‘dialogue’ on the topic — in violation of the First Amendment.” They hope the District Court will overturn the city government’s decision.

The label, which must cover 20 percent of the ad, reads “WARNING: Drinking beverages with added sugar(s) contributes to obesity, diabetes and tooth decay.” The labels mimic warning signs placed on cigarette packs.

Drink manufacturers will not only have to comply with producing warning labels but will be subject to a wave of new restrictions. Baylen Linnekin, chief executive of Keep Food Legal, writes, “the law would prohibit soda makers from identifying the products they sell while protesting against the law on public space. It bars ads advertising soda, Frappuccinos, or some Jamba juices on public property.”

Linnekin identifies two violations of the First Amendment in the city ordinance. One being the government preventing speech with which it disagrees and two, compelling the speaker to switch their language to that preferred by the government.

Government efforts to label certain products with health warnings have taken a knock in recent years. The California plaintiffs may draw hope from the 2012 case where tobacco companies won a major victory after a federal appeals court struck down requirements for cigarette packs to display graphic health warnings.

Judge Janice Rogers Brown of the District of Columbia Circuit, who voted with the majority in the case, wrote ”this case raises novel questions about the scope of the government’s authority to force the manufacturer of a product to go beyond making purely factual and accurate commercial disclosures and undermine its own economic interest — in this case, by making ‘every single pack of cigarettes in the country a mini billboard’ for the government’s antismoking message.”

The Food and Drug Administration which was pursuing the policy has not attempted to reintroduce the graphic labels.

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Originally published by the Daily Caller News Foundation

Via: California Political Review

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Soda Wars and the Nanny State

It’s one thing to tell people they should eat their vegetables, but it’s quite another to ban everything but carrots and broccoli from the dinner table.

But for many of state’s lawmakers, making rules about what Californians can and can’t eat is just part of their job description, convinced as they are that politicians know what’s best for us.

In San Francisco, the city is gearing up for a soda pop war on next year’s ballot, with Supervisor Scott Weiner calling for a two-cents-per-ounce tax on all sugary drinks. San Francisco being San Francisco, about the only complaint now being heard is from another supervisor who has his own plan for a soda tax and different ideas about how the estimated $31million in annual revenues should be spent.

If this sounds familiar, it should. A year ago, Richmond tried to put a penny-an-ounce tax on soda, only to see the ballot measure go down by a two-to-one margin, thanks to voters whose outrage was fueled by more than $2 million in campaign contributions from the American Beverage Association.

A similar measure in El Monte was walloped in a June vote.

And don’t forget that San Francisco and Santa Clara County also have banned McDonalds from putting toys in any Happy Meals that contain more than the limits they set on calories and salt.

In each case, lawmakers argued that they were just doing what was needed to stem the rising tide of childhood obesity, forgetting – or perhaps ignoring – the fact that children have parents whose job it is, morally and legally, to see to their well being.

Unless the politicians are planning to send every parent with an overweight kid to the slammer for child abuse, maybe they should back off and let those parents decide whether their child can munch the occasional French fry or, gasp, drink a Coke.

Via: California Political Review

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MICHELLE OBAMA TO TOUT WATER IN SODA TOWN

MADISON — Wash this political trip down with a little irony.

When first lady Michelle Obama pays a call on Watertown on Thursday afternoon to urge Americans to choose water over soda, she’ll be making her latest health pitch in a southern Wisconsin community that earns its living, at least in part, on the sweat of soda bottlers.

The corporate office of Wis-Pak Inc., a manufacturer and distributor of Pepsi-Cola and other leading soft drinks, is located in Watertown. Wis-Pak, with production facilities and warehouses throughout the central U.S.,  is the community’s 10th largest employer, according to the Watertown Area Chamber of Commerce.

Watertown also is home to the 7-Up Bottling Co., a family-owned business that for 75 years has provided full-service beverage distribution and supplied equipment to businesses in Dodge, Jefferson, Waukesha and Rock counties.

Susan Dascenzo, executive director of the Watertown Area Chamber of Commerce, could not provide employment figures of the two soda distributors.

Officials from the companies did not return phone calls Monday afternoon from Wisconsin Reporter. But a local Republican brought up the interesting political-business juxtaposition not long after the first lady’s office announced plans to unveil her new health effort at the Watertown High School.

Via: Human Events

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