Many of us were speculating about the unintended consequences that Bloomberg's soda ban legislation would have. Looks like we figured one of them out: it's destroying small business in NYC.
The Big Gulps are coming, and the bodegas are going.
At New York City’s mini-grocery stores called bodegas, best known for their stocks of malt liquor and ATMS that charge you five bucks, all the talk is about the looming menace of 7-Eleven stores.
Remember when Pathmark, CVS and Starbucks destroyed the city by opening up stores here? It’s all happening again.
7-Eleven now runs more than 100 outlets in the five boroughs, with a dozen more coming this year. Even Manhattan, whose first 7-Eleven opened three years ago, is now home to about 20 of them, with 100 or so more coming in the next five years.
Locally owned businesses decry national chains stealing their customers. But they should look closer to home — at their locally owned government.New York state offers the nation’s worst tax climate for small businesses, and the city makes the situation worse.
In the Bloomberg years, massive increases in cigarette taxes and anti-smoking laws have cut into one of the bodegas’ most reliable profit centers. The law banning big sodas has already gone into effect in bodegas — but it doesn’t affect 7-Eleven because as an operator of “convenience stores” rather than “bodegas,” the chain is regulated by the state, not the city. State law is so far silent on the issue of how large your soda should be.
Bodega owner Ramon Murphy, the president of the Bodega Association of the United States, pleaded with the state Senate in 2010 against a proposed soda tax, which for the moment has been dropped, saying beverages were 25% of his sales.
The bodega saga is a classic case of government giving you a back rub with one hand and punching you in the face with the other.
Oozing sympathy for small businesses (actually for large and powerful unions), the city has successfully kept Walmart out of the five boroughs.
Great. Except a bodega on Avenue D this year was hit with a $6,000 fine and made to undertake $37,500 worth of renovations after somebody noticed that the space was zoned for a garage — back in 1940. Current owner Bernard Margalit pointed out that the space had been operating as a store since the 1980s, to no avail.
Which is the greater threat? Walmart and 7-Eleven, or the nearly $900 million in fines and fees the city shakes down small businesses for annually?
On Grand Street in Brooklyn in 2010, a bodega was fined $40,000 in building-code violations because, on two advertisements it displayed promoting TV programs, the following words appeared in small print: “Free posters, while supplies last — Enter here to win great prizes.” Some sort of outdoor-advertising rule was broken. The bodega lawyered up and fought the fine in court for two years, then lost anyway.
In a fit of hysteria driven by media reporters about crazed teenagers on Four Loko, the senator from Brooklyn, Charles Schumer, two years ago rammed through an FDA regulation that banned alcoholic caffeine drinks. That killed another profit source in bodegaland, though the combination remains legal when you call it “Irish coffee.”
Bodegas’ longstanding black-market practice of selling single cigarettes as “loosies” — that’s right, it’s illegal to sell one C-stick but legal to sell 20 — will now earn you a city fine of as much as $1,000.
Stores like 7-Eleven enjoy cost savings and other economies of scale that make it possible for them to undersell local retailers. But government, while loudly proclaiming its love for the little guy, keeps coming up with more regulations that increase the advantages of being larger.
Who is going to be more able to survive this fine-apalooza — a deep-pocketed nationwide chain or mom and pop? Forty grand is nothing to 7-Eleven.
In a recent survey by the Bodega Association of New York City, 61% of owners said they faced a risk of going out of business soon and only 24% said they would advise others to start a small business in the city. Seventy-one percent said city officials didn’t understand how their business operates. Last year the owner of Eden Farm, a well-liked East Village bodega, reported he had endured his “worst summer ever” and predicted he’d soon go under.
And to all of this, the city responds with more and more ridiculous interference. Now it’s pushing the New York City Healthy Bodegas Initiative, a friendly-sounding document that gently tries to steer bodega owners to selling healthier fare. Today’s nudge has a way of becoming tomorrow’s law. Needless to say, this pressure isn’t being applied to state-regulated 7-Eleven.
Not that it’ll work anyway, even if 1% milk becomes something bodegas are required by law to sell. It’s been four years since Bloomberg ordered restaurants to post calorie counts. Did New Yorkers stop being fat?
aka the law is failing because it inadvertently created an unequal playing field that could easily be remedied?
Yeah, that definitely means regulation is useless and a joke. Mm-hmm.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Sing lustily and with good courage.
Be aware of singing as if you were half dead,
or half asleep:
but lift your voice with strength.
Be no more afraid of your voice now,
nor more ashamed of its being heard,
than when you sang the songs of Satan.
Rather than making a bad law that needs to be fixed afterward - why not just leave it alone?
This article touches on a broader issue of legislative creep that makes it incrementally more difficult for small business to compete with large ones with every new tax and/or regulation. The supposed benefits of this soda law are debatable. The deterioration of viable business models is confirmed.
aka the law is failing because it inadvertently created an unequal playing field that could easily be remedied?
Yeah, that definitely means regulation is useless and a joke. Mm-hmm.
This kind of regulation is a joke and useless. The only thing it does is hurt businesses, and make consumers have to buy multiple smaller products at a higher price.
Seriously forget what is being sold and consider the basics of bulk purchasing. I want to buy product X and consume enough of it to fulfill my wants/needs. So I go to the store and they sell product X in a container that fulfills my desire for a price I want to buy it at. Government comes in and says oh the store can only sell you product X at half the size they used to. Now I have to buy 2X instead of X. What did the law achieve exactly? Oh, right it costs me more money, I've now thrown away twice the packaging so I am doubling landfill needs, twice the product has to be shipped so increasing air pollution.
What part of this law is not useless, a joke? The part were it increases American consumerism or the part where it completely fails at regulating anything?
For this law to work, it would have to regulate how much of the substance I could intake on a daily basis. Which would mean making it a controlled substance and a system similar to how pharmaceuticals work.
Calorie count is a fair deal to incite new forms of competition, such as "The Whopper has 20% less calories than the Big Mac with a better taste." It's a new piece of information that businesses feared to put up, but it's been a better driver and open information that's able to be understood by even a child allows for people to make wiser economic choices.
Where I am ultimately fearing that he had an issue was similar to the classical sin taxes with Shay's and Whiskey Rebellion that were calmed down and became rather normative. However, Sweden has had to repeal their fat "sin tax" and instead raised up other taxes while abolishing that law. Overall, it may very well be better to increase a sin tax onto some areas.
There's another issue altogether not discussed is the role of slave trafficking and certain industries like cacao beans that pay lip service to the problem, but directly benefit without any clear results. A tax on cacao along with a public service campaign, among other industries, as a weapon against exploitative forms of crony capitalism funded through a tax would be fair as a weapon.
Overall, I agree that central planning is a massive problem and dealing with supply and demand have disastrous consequences. However, for specific "sin taxes" that are allocated over several products of such a design without being too broad is fair. For example, caffeinated beverages placed in a similar area as beer like 5 Hour Energy would be fair. But too broad, like Swedens, is problematic to an industry.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Ambition must be made to counteract ambition.
Individualities may form communities, but it is institutions alone that can create a nation.
Nothing succeeds like the appearance of success.
Here is my principle: Taxes shall be levied according to ability to pay. That is the only American principle.
This kind of regulation is a joke and useless. The only thing it does is hurt businesses, and make consumers have to buy multiple smaller products at a higher price.
Yeah, except there are numerous studies which show that's actually false. You reduce product sizes, and most people will just buy one of the smaller products. The handful who really, really want that much soda are going to find a way to get it no matter what, but most people will be disincentivized enough by the price to just not do it.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Sing lustily and with good courage.
Be aware of singing as if you were half dead,
or half asleep:
but lift your voice with strength.
Be no more afraid of your voice now,
nor more ashamed of its being heard,
than when you sang the songs of Satan.
When ever you see this kind of one sided legislation that effects certain businesses, look to see who benefits and see which lobby groups they support and have alliances.
Its all back room business and selling politicians
Yes, these repercussions can easily be remedied. Honestly, with the recent statistics being reported on childhood obesity, the lowering of the average American's life expectancy and etc., an economic consequence that again, can be fixed, is the least of my worries.
Yeah, except there are numerous studies which show that's actually false. You reduce product sizes, and most people will just buy one of the smaller products. The handful who really, really want that much soda are going to find a way to get it no matter what, but most people will be disincentivized enough by the price to just not do it.
The best selling soda product is 12 packs of 12 ounce cans. And that COMPLETELY blows your theory to pieces.
Generally speaking what I've learned from seminars, books, and economics classes is smart consumers compare price vs qty (they want the most bang for their buck to fulfill needs), impulse shoppers want exactly what fulfills their current need right then (value doesn't matter here, choice does), and repeat shoppers buy what they are used to buying. When you relate this to Soda, which is classified as a mildly addictive product with a HIGH repeat purchase pattern, the trend matches perfectly how they are sold in every store I have ever been to everywhere.
So that is where it affects Bodegas as in this article. Because most purchases at a Bodega are Impulse shoppers when you reduce variety you start to push them more into the other 2 roles. Instead of Impulse shopping they try to be smart shoppers, so either stop shopping at the Bodega completely because the value SUCKS, or they fall into a pattern and purchase for their needs previously. If my need previously was a 1 liter, I'm gonna have to buy 2 20 ounces, 1 won't do and I know it. That's basic socio-economics right there.
Edit- I completely re-wrote this post nearly, decided I ended on what should have been the beginnning.
Senori was replying in context to your assertion that smaller size=more purchase. You have to remember that this is in relation to businesses selling large size drinks off a vendo dispenser, not buying a 12 pack from a grocery/convenience store.
Basically, if McDonalds started limiting their drinks to 8oz, people will buy 1 serving of 8 oz. Even people who are used to 16 oz will not buy 2 8 oz. Sure, there will be people who will buy 2 8oz drinks, but for the most part the rest go "oh well, 2 cups is too much anyway," even if that was how much they were consuming before.
Apples and oranges. We are discussing how this law affects Bodegas as presented in the Article. Your citation studies restaurants. That implies an ENTIRELY different scope.
Also self defeating because as this law covers soda... Free Refills (or not free) completely remove any validity that study would lend to the discussion. Also it dances around the supply chain and environmental impact issues because they are completely different for restaurants than a store.
Apples and oranges. We are discussing how this law affects Bodegas as presented in the Article. Your citation studies restaurants. That implies an ENTIRELY different scope.
You mean this?
The law banning big sodas has already gone into effect in bodegas — but it doesn’t affect 7-Eleven because as an operator of “convenience stores” rather than “bodegas,” the chain is regulated by the state, not the city. State law is so far silent on the issue of how large your soda should be.
Same principle. If you don't like the word "McDonald" in the previous post, replace it with "7-11"
We're talking about single sale vendo machine products here, not cans of 12-ounce softdrinks, which, as far as I know, the law doesn't cover. You're the one comparing apples to oranges in trying to equate buying a single large softdrinks vs a single smaller one to a packs of soda.
On the one hand you have people who drink too much soda and possibly allow their kids to drink too much soda.
On the other hand you have people who have no stake in the matter - but think that they ought to be allowed to decide what the first group is allowed to purchase.
Whatever i may think about the first group - they're not knowingly imposing any sort of harm or restriction upon anyone.
The second group is a group of people who are knowingly and willfully inflicting their beliefs upon people who don't want it. I find this sort of behavior repugnant.
If people just want to drink lots of soda and die fat then more power to them.
I AM familiar with the idea that there are healthcare costs and that point is not entirely without merit, but healthcare didnt get to be expensive because we were ingesting too much sugar. That is a completely different problem.
I don't think that the ends justify the means here.
There are other means toward lower consumption. Education works, and addressing corn subsidies would be an even better avenue to pursue.
I don't drink sodas, haven't for years, but I personally believe that we shouldn't legislate these kinds of restrictions.
It seems so cynically motivated to me, "what can we GET AWAY with restricting?" And thus, it comes off as frivolous. People already addicted to the unhealthy lifestyles of drinking and eating junk do so mostly for psycho-chemical reasons. Addiction goes a lot deeper than any law can legislate.
I don't see the moral police coming in and clamping on stuff I would rather society due away with. I make no qualms about my disgust with cigarettes, gambling, strip clubs, and prostitution, and how I'd have no problem legislating restrictions on them. I've seen each and every one thoroughly destroy my friend's and loved ones lives. But since these things can bring in the almighty Revenue... the moralists at the state level seem awfully quiet about those vices. It's complete hypocrisy.
edit: Didn't even look at the whole family owned bodega versus corporate chain fiasco.. what a complete and utter failure.
The best selling soda product is 12 packs of 12 ounce cans. And that COMPLETELY blows your theory to pieces.
No, because if you made it a 12-pack of 12-oz cans instead of 16-oz cans, and they stopped making the 16oz ones entirely, it'd still be the most popular. Almost no-one is buying a 12-pack to drink every can at once; they're buying it to buy Coke for a number of situations. If you wanted the maximum bang-for-your-buck, you'd get the 36-pack.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Sing lustily and with good courage.
Be aware of singing as if you were half dead,
or half asleep:
but lift your voice with strength.
Be no more afraid of your voice now,
nor more ashamed of its being heard,
than when you sang the songs of Satan.
I agree fully with Illinest and thethirdbardo. Government should have no business in trying to sway people's purchasing power from one product to another. People should make those choices themselves.
Education is the way to fix the issue not law. Teach the public about what calories actually mean to their health. Teach them about good and bad calories. Then also STOP teaching kids about how they shouldnt waste food. In our society there are many examples of conditioning children to believe that it is good to eat everything in front of them. "eat everything so you can be big and strong" "clean your plate" "there are starving kids in Africa that would love that food your throwing away". There is also a lot of emphasis put on buying in bulk and getting the best value for your dollar. When you walk into Subway and a 6 inch costs 4 dollars then a footlong costs 6 dollars it's easy to see that the second half of the footlong is cheaper than the first half. Many people are conditioned to get the bigger option because of this. They are basically taught in school in many cases, that they are being ripped off if they dont purchases the larger size, even though they may be perfectly content with eating the 6-inch for lunch.
Like I already said your citation covers restaurants. I've read that study and it completely ignores the concepts of refills. As are you. This was already well established when they cut Super Size from McDonalds through legislation. The only thing that resulted in that was that I can now order 10 piece nuggets, triple patty burgers, or extra food. There are some really good books on it I suppose I should go google some citations for you. But really just look at the menus.
The idea is that in the long run this kind of law will lead to a healthier population which will help offset health care costs that are currently bankrupting the USA: most of the studies on the topic agree that these laws work; they just take a VERY long time to do so.
Long term planning is complicated and unpopular but necessary
The idea is that in the long run this kind of law will lead to a healthier population which will help offset health care costs that are currently bankrupting the USA: most of the studies on the topic agree that these laws work; they just take a VERY long time to do so.
Long term planning is complicated and unpopular but necessary
Long term planning is extremely flawed because people cannot see the future.
Education of the populace on the other hand has the benefit of letting people choose what they want based on the current situation and is infinitely more flexible than law. I also believe that it is already starting to work. Pepsi Next is an example of an attempt to bridge the gap between Diet soda and regular soda. Pepsi is also currently trying out a new Mtn Dew variant that comes in 16oz cans like an energy drink, has just a bit more caffeine per once and only 80 calories in a 16 once instead of the 140ish for a 12 oz.
The new problem is bridging the gap between the educated middle to upper class and the less educated or less able lower classes. Kool Aid is cheaper than fruit juice... we have to somehow convince people with limited spending power that the difference is worth it or provide an alternative that is healthier at the same price.
The new problem is bridging the gap between the educated middle to upper class and the less educated or less able lower classes. Kool Aid is cheaper than fruit juice... we have to somehow convince people with limited spending power that the difference is worth it or provide an alternative that is healthier at the same price.
Honestly fruit juice isn't that much healthier. Fruit is healthier.
We easily control this from a central source by giving people money and telling them what they can spend it on. WIC covers fruit juice but not koolaid (or variants of sweetened artificially flavored beverages such as Hawaiian Punch)
The big issue with this is that since mom has extra money she buys both and the kids get 1 juice for breakfast and then drink soda all day.
My cousin has two fat ass kids. (3 and 6 and they are really fat). She says she packs them healthy lunches for school, but I know darn good and well those kids eat MCD's about 4-5x a week.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Out of the blackness and stench of the engulfing swamp emerged a shimmering figure. Only the splattered armor and ichor-stained sword hinted at the unfathomable evil the knight had just laid waste.
The new problem is bridging the gap between the educated middle to upper class and the less educated or less able lower classes. Kool Aid is cheaper than fruit juice... we have to somehow convince people with limited spending power that the difference is worth it or provide an alternative that is healthier at the same price.
I bought a juicer about a year ago. Best damned purchase I've ever made. When I was still living in Florida, I could literally walk outside, yank oranges and grapefruit from the trees, bring 'em inside and have beverages for the afternoon. It took not even ten minutes. Even when it was off-season and I had to buy them, you can get a grapefruit for like $.30, and that usually makes two glasses of juice, three if you get a good one.
My juicer cost me about $140 up-front. They come a fair bit cheaper than that too, I've seen them as cheap as $40. Before, I used to buy about a 36 pack of soda a week. So over the course of a year, assuming that they're about $12 a piece, (they're actually a tad more expensive) I would have spent almost $630 in that same time frame.
It's pretty nuts how much money people throw away. I know that I, personally, didn't start drinking juice for health reasons or anything, (I'm just a guy who likes juice) but it can't be denied that I'm still better off for it regardless.
While I understand Bloomberg’s intent is to limit the availability of highly caloric drinks deemed “unnecessary” for consumption, I don’t think his approach is the appropriate method to reduce obesity. It's the responsibility of the consumer to become educated as to what they buy and it is their sole decision on whether to make the purchase or not. If the consumer wishes to imbibe on (unnecessarily) large carbonated beverages, then it is their liberty to do so. Bloomberg should not have the authority to put a cap on how much I want to drink in a single serving.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Central planning is a joke.
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/beaten_to_gulp_udQJp2Xt5jatqsRE0HXsGK
Yeah, that definitely means regulation is useless and a joke. Mm-hmm.
Be aware of singing as if you were half dead,
or half asleep:
but lift your voice with strength.
Be no more afraid of your voice now,
nor more ashamed of its being heard,
than when you sang the songs of Satan.
This article touches on a broader issue of legislative creep that makes it incrementally more difficult for small business to compete with large ones with every new tax and/or regulation. The supposed benefits of this soda law are debatable. The deterioration of viable business models is confirmed.
This kind of regulation is a joke and useless. The only thing it does is hurt businesses, and make consumers have to buy multiple smaller products at a higher price.
Seriously forget what is being sold and consider the basics of bulk purchasing. I want to buy product X and consume enough of it to fulfill my wants/needs. So I go to the store and they sell product X in a container that fulfills my desire for a price I want to buy it at. Government comes in and says oh the store can only sell you product X at half the size they used to. Now I have to buy 2X instead of X. What did the law achieve exactly? Oh, right it costs me more money, I've now thrown away twice the packaging so I am doubling landfill needs, twice the product has to be shipped so increasing air pollution.
What part of this law is not useless, a joke? The part were it increases American consumerism or the part where it completely fails at regulating anything?
For this law to work, it would have to regulate how much of the substance I could intake on a daily basis. Which would mean making it a controlled substance and a system similar to how pharmaceuticals work.
Where I am ultimately fearing that he had an issue was similar to the classical sin taxes with Shay's and Whiskey Rebellion that were calmed down and became rather normative. However, Sweden has had to repeal their fat "sin tax" and instead raised up other taxes while abolishing that law. Overall, it may very well be better to increase a sin tax onto some areas.
There's another issue altogether not discussed is the role of slave trafficking and certain industries like cacao beans that pay lip service to the problem, but directly benefit without any clear results. A tax on cacao along with a public service campaign, among other industries, as a weapon against exploitative forms of crony capitalism funded through a tax would be fair as a weapon.
Overall, I agree that central planning is a massive problem and dealing with supply and demand have disastrous consequences. However, for specific "sin taxes" that are allocated over several products of such a design without being too broad is fair. For example, caffeinated beverages placed in a similar area as beer like 5 Hour Energy would be fair. But too broad, like Swedens, is problematic to an industry.
Ambition must be made to counteract ambition.
Individualities may form communities, but it is institutions alone that can create a nation.
Nothing succeeds like the appearance of success.
Here is my principle: Taxes shall be levied according to ability to pay. That is the only American principle.
Yeah, except there are numerous studies which show that's actually false. You reduce product sizes, and most people will just buy one of the smaller products. The handful who really, really want that much soda are going to find a way to get it no matter what, but most people will be disincentivized enough by the price to just not do it.
Be aware of singing as if you were half dead,
or half asleep:
but lift your voice with strength.
Be no more afraid of your voice now,
nor more ashamed of its being heard,
than when you sang the songs of Satan.
Its all back room business and selling politicians
The best selling soda product is 12 packs of 12 ounce cans. And that COMPLETELY blows your theory to pieces.
Generally speaking what I've learned from seminars, books, and economics classes is smart consumers compare price vs qty (they want the most bang for their buck to fulfill needs), impulse shoppers want exactly what fulfills their current need right then (value doesn't matter here, choice does), and repeat shoppers buy what they are used to buying. When you relate this to Soda, which is classified as a mildly addictive product with a HIGH repeat purchase pattern, the trend matches perfectly how they are sold in every store I have ever been to everywhere.
So that is where it affects Bodegas as in this article. Because most purchases at a Bodega are Impulse shoppers when you reduce variety you start to push them more into the other 2 roles. Instead of Impulse shopping they try to be smart shoppers, so either stop shopping at the Bodega completely because the value SUCKS, or they fall into a pattern and purchase for their needs previously. If my need previously was a 1 liter, I'm gonna have to buy 2 20 ounces, 1 won't do and I know it. That's basic socio-economics right there.
Edit- I completely re-wrote this post nearly, decided I ended on what should have been the beginnning.
http://content.healthaffairs.org/content/31/2/399.abstract?sid=c4c948c6-83b2-4a3e-bc11-cbc421d59666
Senori was replying in context to your assertion that smaller size=more purchase. You have to remember that this is in relation to businesses selling large size drinks off a vendo dispenser, not buying a 12 pack from a grocery/convenience store.
Basically, if McDonalds started limiting their drinks to 8oz, people will buy 1 serving of 8 oz. Even people who are used to 16 oz will not buy 2 8 oz. Sure, there will be people who will buy 2 8oz drinks, but for the most part the rest go "oh well, 2 cups is too much anyway," even if that was how much they were consuming before.
"Sometimes, the situation is outracing a threat, sometimes it's ignoring it, and sometimes it involves sideboarding in 4x Hope//Pray." --Doug Linn
Apples and oranges. We are discussing how this law affects Bodegas as presented in the Article. Your citation studies restaurants. That implies an ENTIRELY different scope.
Also self defeating because as this law covers soda... Free Refills (or not free) completely remove any validity that study would lend to the discussion. Also it dances around the supply chain and environmental impact issues because they are completely different for restaurants than a store.
You mean this?
Same principle. If you don't like the word "McDonald" in the previous post, replace it with "7-11"
We're talking about single sale vendo machine products here, not cans of 12-ounce softdrinks, which, as far as I know, the law doesn't cover. You're the one comparing apples to oranges in trying to equate buying a single large softdrinks vs a single smaller one to a packs of soda.
"Sometimes, the situation is outracing a threat, sometimes it's ignoring it, and sometimes it involves sideboarding in 4x Hope//Pray." --Doug Linn
On the one hand you have people who drink too much soda and possibly allow their kids to drink too much soda.
On the other hand you have people who have no stake in the matter - but think that they ought to be allowed to decide what the first group is allowed to purchase.
Whatever i may think about the first group - they're not knowingly imposing any sort of harm or restriction upon anyone.
The second group is a group of people who are knowingly and willfully inflicting their beliefs upon people who don't want it. I find this sort of behavior repugnant.
If people just want to drink lots of soda and die fat then more power to them.
I AM familiar with the idea that there are healthcare costs and that point is not entirely without merit, but healthcare didnt get to be expensive because we were ingesting too much sugar. That is a completely different problem.
I don't think that the ends justify the means here.
There are other means toward lower consumption. Education works, and addressing corn subsidies would be an even better avenue to pursue.
It seems so cynically motivated to me, "what can we GET AWAY with restricting?" And thus, it comes off as frivolous. People already addicted to the unhealthy lifestyles of drinking and eating junk do so mostly for psycho-chemical reasons. Addiction goes a lot deeper than any law can legislate.
I don't see the moral police coming in and clamping on stuff I would rather society due away with. I make no qualms about my disgust with cigarettes, gambling, strip clubs, and prostitution, and how I'd have no problem legislating restrictions on them. I've seen each and every one thoroughly destroy my friend's and loved ones lives. But since these things can bring in the almighty Revenue... the moralists at the state level seem awfully quiet about those vices. It's complete hypocrisy.
edit: Didn't even look at the whole family owned bodega versus corporate chain fiasco.. what a complete and utter failure.
No, because if you made it a 12-pack of 12-oz cans instead of 16-oz cans, and they stopped making the 16oz ones entirely, it'd still be the most popular. Almost no-one is buying a 12-pack to drink every can at once; they're buying it to buy Coke for a number of situations. If you wanted the maximum bang-for-your-buck, you'd get the 36-pack.
Be aware of singing as if you were half dead,
or half asleep:
but lift your voice with strength.
Be no more afraid of your voice now,
nor more ashamed of its being heard,
than when you sang the songs of Satan.
Education is the way to fix the issue not law. Teach the public about what calories actually mean to their health. Teach them about good and bad calories. Then also STOP teaching kids about how they shouldnt waste food. In our society there are many examples of conditioning children to believe that it is good to eat everything in front of them. "eat everything so you can be big and strong" "clean your plate" "there are starving kids in Africa that would love that food your throwing away". There is also a lot of emphasis put on buying in bulk and getting the best value for your dollar. When you walk into Subway and a 6 inch costs 4 dollars then a footlong costs 6 dollars it's easy to see that the second half of the footlong is cheaper than the first half. Many people are conditioned to get the bigger option because of this. They are basically taught in school in many cases, that they are being ripped off if they dont purchases the larger size, even though they may be perfectly content with eating the 6-inch for lunch.
A judge has struck down the soda ban on several reasons.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/03/11/soda-ban-new-york-city/1979653/
basically said that government overstepped it's bounds.
bloomberg is going to appeal but i figure he will get the same answer from the other courts.
Thanks to Epic Graphics the best around.
Thanks to Nex3 for the avatar visit ye old sig and avatar forum
Long term planning is complicated and unpopular but necessary
Long term planning is extremely flawed because people cannot see the future.
Education of the populace on the other hand has the benefit of letting people choose what they want based on the current situation and is infinitely more flexible than law. I also believe that it is already starting to work. Pepsi Next is an example of an attempt to bridge the gap between Diet soda and regular soda. Pepsi is also currently trying out a new Mtn Dew variant that comes in 16oz cans like an energy drink, has just a bit more caffeine per once and only 80 calories in a 16 once instead of the 140ish for a 12 oz.
The new problem is bridging the gap between the educated middle to upper class and the less educated or less able lower classes. Kool Aid is cheaper than fruit juice... we have to somehow convince people with limited spending power that the difference is worth it or provide an alternative that is healthier at the same price.
Honestly fruit juice isn't that much healthier. Fruit is healthier.
We easily control this from a central source by giving people money and telling them what they can spend it on. WIC covers fruit juice but not koolaid (or variants of sweetened artificially flavored beverages such as Hawaiian Punch)
The big issue with this is that since mom has extra money she buys both and the kids get 1 juice for breakfast and then drink soda all day.
My cousin has two fat ass kids. (3 and 6 and they are really fat). She says she packs them healthy lunches for school, but I know darn good and well those kids eat MCD's about 4-5x a week.
I bought a juicer about a year ago. Best damned purchase I've ever made. When I was still living in Florida, I could literally walk outside, yank oranges and grapefruit from the trees, bring 'em inside and have beverages for the afternoon. It took not even ten minutes. Even when it was off-season and I had to buy them, you can get a grapefruit for like $.30, and that usually makes two glasses of juice, three if you get a good one.
My juicer cost me about $140 up-front. They come a fair bit cheaper than that too, I've seen them as cheap as $40. Before, I used to buy about a 36 pack of soda a week. So over the course of a year, assuming that they're about $12 a piece, (they're actually a tad more expensive) I would have spent almost $630 in that same time frame.
It's pretty nuts how much money people throw away. I know that I, personally, didn't start drinking juice for health reasons or anything, (I'm just a guy who likes juice) but it can't be denied that I'm still better off for it regardless.
Because we care about facts.