Plan to Tax Soda Gets a Mixed Reception

It is because of pigs like this that the rest of us suffer.

Even here at a sweaty Zumba class sponsored by a nonprofit group called Weigh of Life, the city’s proposal for a one-cent-per-ounce tax on sugar-sweetened beverages, which is to appear on the November ballot, meets up against the hard realities of residents’ lives.

“What don’t I have?” asked Rita Cerda, a longtime soda devotee, ticking off her ailments, including diabetes, high blood pressure and asthma. She is also overweight.

“I have problems drinking water,” she said. “I don’t like water.”

The proposed tax, a license fee on businesses selling sweetened drinks, would require owners of bodegas, theaters, convenience stores and other outlets to tally ounces sold and, presumably, pass the cost on to customers. It is the most visible West Coast municipal challenge yet to Big Soda, as advocates are fond of calling it.

Pending voter approval, money from the tax, which has been championed by Dr. Jeff Ritterman, a cardiologist turned City Council member, would go toward fighting childhood obesity through more bike lanes, nutritional education and after-school sports programs. Already a contentious issue locally, the potential tax is also being viewed as a beachhead by a coalition of beverage manufacturers, merchant groups and labor unions who are organizing to defeat it.

And IMHO moron docs like Ritterman, too.

No way, no how this will work.

Worse than a waste.

A pipe dream.