Judge Blocks Bloomberg's Big Beverage Ban

Today a judge blocked New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg's big beverage ban, which was scheduled to take effect tomorrow. New York Supreme Court Judge Milton Tingling issued a permanent injunction barring the city from enforcing its drink regulations, which he said are "fraught with arbitrary and capricious consequences." I detailed some of those last week, noting that beverages exempt from the city's 16-ounce serving ceiling often have more calories per ounce than exempt beverages, even though fighting obesity is the official rationale for the restrictions. Tingling also noted that only certain businesses are covered by the regulations: restaurants, coffee shops, food carts, and concession stands. Convenience stores and supermarkets, meanwhile, would have been free to sell soda servings as big as customers wanted, including 7-Eleven's Big Gulp, the epitome of effervescent excess. The upshot would have been "uneven enforcement even within a particular city block," Tingling said. He deemed the drink diktat "arbitrary and capricious" because "it applies to some but not all food establishments in the City, it excludes other beverages that have significantly higher concentrations of sugar sweeteners and/or calories on suspect grounds, and the loopholes inherent in the Rule, including but not limited to no limitations on re-fills, defeat and/or serve to gut the purpose of the Rule." Tingling also concluded that the Bloomberg-appointed Board of Health does not have the authority to "limit or ban a legal item under the guise of 'controlling chronic disease.'"...more