Fortunately, not all common sense is dead and his ban was turned down on the grounds that there are too many loop holes.
12 March 2013
America - Land of Free
Fortunately, not all common sense is dead and his ban was turned down on the grounds that there are too many loop holes.
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The ban on the ban might be temporary, though. It's one of the quirks of America's enormously complicated political and legal system that a court can stop a law from going into effect, but then another court can put it back into effect, but then yet another and higher court might strike it down again. This can go on for months or years until the whole thing is finally settled. It's kind of interesting to see the reasoning the judge used to block the law in this case -- that the city government's authority to regulate the food supply covers only immediate threats to health (like poisoned food or the spread of germs), not longer-term threats like you get from sugar:
ReplyDeletehttp://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2013/03/soda-ban-judge-struck-down-milton-tingling.html
Bloomberg's leaving office soon, by the way, so all this might end up being decided by who gets elected mayor next. At least one prominent candidate is against the soda ban -- and, as it happens, has been getting campaign funding from the Coca-Cola company, if I heard correctly (private and corporate funding of politicians being yet another delightful American tradition).
The ban on the sale of large soda drinks sounds like a total nonsense to me. You have your free will. “Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.“ Nothing and nobody can make people take care of their health. However, it is not the same case with smoking because passive drinking, or in other words sitting beside someone who drinks a lot of alcohol or in this case a lot of coca cola, does not endanger our lives. I would appreciate if we banned smoking in public as well. In the Czech Republic it is quite difficult for a nonsmoker to find the right kind of a restaurant or a bar where smoking would be banned :/
ReplyDeleteIt seems like America is the land of possibilities but I don't think this ban is just bad. Yes, I agree that everybody has right to Freedom but let's face it, sodas are not healthy and the consumers might like to think about what they put in their bodies more. So this ban might be some kind of forewarning for those who consume way tooo much of it. I completely agree with the ban on smoking in public places here in the Czech Republic, that would be delightful!
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