Last November, two city supervisors, Eric Mar and Scott Wiener, nearly got voters to pass a sugary beverage tax, all in the name of San Francisco's health.
Nearly is the operative word.
The measure garnered a 54 percent "yes" vote, but needed two-thirds of the vote to pass. Proposition E drowned in a tide of soda industry money — a sum of $10 million.
Still, you can't say the supervisors aren't persistent. Learning a hard (sticky-sweet) lesson, they'll now circumvent all those soda dollars. Tuesday the three introduced a multi-prong assault on sugary beverages in San Francisco through legislation, and this time, it would only require a vote of the supervisors, and not San Franciscans.
Wiener's legislation would place mandatory warning labels on sugary beverage ads across the city, while Supervisor Malia Cohen's proposed legislation would ban sugary beverage ads on city property (no more cute polar bears on Muni buses).
And then, Supervisor Mar introduced legislation that would ban city resources from being spent on sugary drinks. His aide, Peter Lauterborn, explains: "If I receive a grant from the city, I can't use that funding to buy harmful beverages." (After-school programs, prepare to buy a lot of apple juice.)
So after an oh-so-close near-win at the ballot box, it seems the supervisors are sticking to a tried-and-true method: circumventing the Big Soda industry's money, the only way they can.
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