Bloomberg’s big drink ban…
At least for now:
Judge Tingling determined that Mr. Bloomberg exceeded his authority by sidestepping the City Council and placing the issue before the city’s Board of Health, a panel whose members were each appointed by the mayor.
Mr. Bloomberg said at the news conference he has no plans to bring the measure before the City Council.
Rick Hills, a law professor at New York University, said, “There’s a sense that Bloomberg has an imperial disdain for the City Council, and this ruling says ‘no more rule by mayoral decree.'”…
The judge ruled the regulations are “fraught with arbitrary and capricious consequences,” noting how there would be uneven enforcement within a single city block. The regulations didn’t affect the Big Gulp at 7-11 because supermarkets and convenience stores are regulated by the state, not the city.
He wrote that regulations exclude other beverages that have significantly higher concentrations of sugar sweeteners and calories on “suspect grounds.” The regulations don’t limit patrons from getting refills; that provision, the judge said, appears to “gut the purpose of the rule.”
I continue to be puzzled by the comparison of this law to the ban on smoking in restaurants and other public places. Although it’s true that, as the article states, there is “irrefutable statistical evidence that smoking is bad for people in innumerable ways,” and the deleterious effects of soda are less clear, that’s by no means the only—or even the most important—difference. The argument behind the restaurant smoking ban has little to do with the health of the smoker him/herself. It is based on evidence (somewhat controversial, by the way) that second-hand smoke harms the health of the passive recipient of the smoke, and therefore is an attempt to protect the smoker from harming others.
Right now I’m not going to go into an analysis of the data about second-hand smoking’s danger; let’s just say that a while back I read up on the arguments pro and con and found all the research to have been poorly done and nonpersuasive, in part because there are problems inherent in measuring exposure to second-hand smoke.
However, that’s not really the point. The point is that protecting the non-smoker from the dangers of second-hand smoke was the argument used to ban smoking in public places such as restaurants. There is no similar argument that the imbibing of large soft drinks harms the onlooker, unless it offends his/her esthetic sense, which is hardly the same..
Large capacity sodas threaten the children. That is sufficient to uphold the ban. Bloomberg knows best. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.
Glad I found e-cigarettes. Of course, they’ll probably make them illegal one day.
I agree with you completely on the mis-identified reasoning behind the ban on smoking in public places; it’s to protect others.
Regardless of the paucity of research proving that second-hand smoke harms others, I am sure that it does, based on my own experience. When I would go to dance clubs with a heavy concentration of smoke, I would have a raw throat and headache afterwards. The smell of smoke would not leave my sinuses for at least a day. As much as I loved to dance, I rarely went because the best music in my town was found only in smoky clubs.
I also grew up in the era when people thought absolutely nothing of smoking in enclosed places when there were children trapped with them. I developed asthma in my twenties and I’m pretty sure that had a lot to do with it. Now if I am trapped with smokers (as happened a few times when visiting relatives) I have trouble breathing for the next few days. Started having to avoid some family visits, which sucks.
Health hazard of the so-called second-hand smoke are quite doubtful, but inconvenience of smoke-filled rooms for non-smokers are obvious and sufficient reason to ban smoking in restorants. My wife always complains when I smoke in her presence even outdoors, it gives her migraine, and this can be the case with others, too.
parker Says:
“Large capacity sodas threaten the children. That is sufficient to uphold the ban.”
Assault soda! Anyway; seriously many are also comparing this to gun bans. The people making the comparisons say gun laws tend to be equally arbitrary and it would be nice if the courts treated them the same.
PS
speaking of arbitrary soda laws… I just buy 2 liters now and drink from them… even at work… probably another easy way around a big drink ban….
diet at least…
sultan knish says all that really needs to be said on the subject… i defer…
Consuming too much of anything is not a good idea. That being said, every good, even great idea should not be given the force of law, be it Local, State, or Federal.
I tend to look at this when when making the smoking-sofa comparison. I’m an former cigarette smoker, quit in 1989 for purely selfish health reasons. However, since the early ’90s, I’ve enjoyed high-quality, hand-rolled imported cigars. Cigar smoking is a very different experience and provides far fewer of the health risks of cigarettes (one doesn’t inhale cigar smoke, for example).
Nevertheless, I find cigarette smoke kind of annoying now. I understand why non-smokers don’t like it, because even if you take away the health questions, it’s smelly, it can irritate the eyes and throat, and it’s not fun to be around when you’re trying to eat. For those reasons, I don’t have an issue with a smoking ban in an enclose public space. As a cigar smoker, I’m pretty much banned from doing it anywhere other than outdoors, and I generally reserve them for relaxing times at home in my back yard.
I do, however, believe the decision to ban smoking in a public place (i.e., restaurant, bar) should be the choice of the owner. The only requirement should be that they post this fact at the front door, to warn people who might not like it.
All that being said, the issue for me is how does the size of anyone’s drink, sugary or otherwise, effect those around the person imbibing said drink? The most obnoxious thing one could do with a Big Gulp is spill some or make slurping noises with a straw. That certainly doesn’t affect or “harm” anyone in the area of that drink.
For that reason alone, this comes down to the insistence of a busybody who believes he knows better than the people of his city and attempts to force changes on them that they simply don’t want.
And when I visit New York (I’m an expatriate), I better be able to hit Gem Spa for a very large egg cream, Bloomberg be damned.
http://www.ace.mu.nu/
BEGIN PASTE
How Is the Soda Ban Similar to the “Assault Weapon” Ban?
Update: Nurse Bloomberg Offering Live Diagnosis to His 8 Million Patients Right Damn Now
–Ace
Interesting point from Allah: They’re both designed to fail at their supposed goal, so that additional legislation may be passed.
The game works like this: Start with something minor and niggling that actually won’t achieve the stated goal. However, because it’s so minor and niggling, only a minority objects and you can ram it down everyone’s throats.
A year later, when your law designed to have no appreciable effect towards achieving its stated goal has no appreciable effect towards achieving its stated goal, you can now pass some Supplementary Legislation to put some “teeth” into your original designed-to-fail law. As the Party of Control is encroaching on liberty in baby steps, you don’t notice, like the frog that doesn’t jump out of the bath of slowly-escalating-temperature water.
END PASTE
However, that’s not really the point. The point is that protecting the non-smoker from the dangers of second-hand smoke was the argument used to ban smoking in public places such as restaurants. There is no similar argument that the imbibing of large soft drinks harms the onlooker, unless it offends his/her esthetic sense, which is hardly the same..
hopefully i wont get this wrong.
but your statement is sad
as your on the verge of realizing that the argument was a false argument to get you to accept the exception.
now that the exception is well established, what can you do about its expansion? ie. if the argument was valid, you could expand it, but it isnt, so you cant counter it.
lets use a different example that illustrates the principal of getting the public to swallow horse manure, and comment on how good the Godiva chocolate is.
the drug war… you forget that the ban on cigs, was derived from the ban in the drug war. and the only reason that they could not schedule tobacco was because too many people smoked and so would tear apart the bs in the drug schedules (that put marijuana with cocaine, so kids think cocaine is as safe as marijuana, not the other way around)
you see… what was ok to do to people you dont like, and got permission for, gets expanded to everyone the elite dont like. which is everyone.
so… the siezing of property that was sancrosant in the constitition, was broken for drugs… which also shored up the gun arguments, in that inanimate objects can be guilty of crimes. and so, a gun, without a person, can be guilty too…
you see. they established this so that they were not seizing property from owners, but siezing property used in a crime. and then making it impossible for the person to keep their property.
now… this has expanded to drunk drivers… and has expanded to kelo… (if you can seize it to protect people which is theri best interest, then why cant you seize it for other best interests?)…
but its even now expanded to obama care, where the IRS has dispensation oto sieze your ho9me and property to auction it off to pay your medical bills
(as nancy pelosi said… we own all the property in america and all the economic output…(paraphrased of course))
so.. seizurs have been normalized
now your talking about normalization of banning things for your own good…
well.. the ONLY reason banning cigs flew was that tobacco smokers were so damn filthy and inconsiderate about it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
if they carried a purse for butts, and didnt smoke in closed spaces, and blew smoke in your face, and on and on… then the public would have had some sympathy… but they didnt, they littred, clogged up machines, filthed up property, dirtied and spoiled meals, and on and on.
so tobacco was targeted as it was the foot in the door thing that would get the PREMISE accepted.
of course. you can read about the technique. i have sent neo stuff but have yet to hear from her.
here is an example of the kind of stuff they talk about to make policy… but this time. its womens studis, talking aboutg how to estalbish that jews are not white and so do not have to be exterminated.
I would echo much of what RigelDog and Sergey say.
Joe Dougherty says, “I do, however, believe the decision to ban smoking in a public place (i.e., restaurant, bar) should be the choice of the owner. The only requirement should be that they post this fact at the front door, to warn people who might not like it.” As much as I agree would like to agree with him, I think he forgets that while customers can choose on a whim which restaurant to patronize, the employees would be stuck.
Bloomberg: Government Probably Shouldn’t Force Exercise
that was the heading…
and of course… we forget romania, japan, mao, korea, and on and on
ALL of them had mass exercise programs that people like bloomberg see and say… oh, how my orgasms would be so wonderful if i had millions exercising every morning against their will and i forced them.
if you search youtube, you will find they scrubbed most of the examples of soviet communist mass exericise. but if you see google images, you can see what you tube doesnt want you to see…
and you can see that the more google helps, the more its like some wacko who brings you waht you dont want.
hi, i would like some ham and cheeze on white
here is your pizza
but i asked for ham and cheese on white
here is your article on white privelege
etc
so if you search for pyongyang exercise, you get the armstice… because they dont think you really want to know about exercise, but asked for exercise so you can find out about the coming nuclear war.
(which by the way, we are unprepared for. as they prepare for a missle norks dont have, and do not prevent them from shipping to south america, and bringing it through one of the open border tunnesl that ship tonnes of cocain, meth, and other things. duh. not to mention a fishing trawler can send it up in a weather balloon.. and it would float over the US like the japanese firebombs launched from japan. they didnt set the forests on fire, but they did kill a family at a picnic… anucler version of this would do a lot more… and no way to stop it.. shoot it down, it goes off… )
i would suggest reading about what theya re copying.
then you will know what they are doing
they are not original thinkers, they are incremental thinkers who copy an copy and copy.
so its easy to see that they are, or have learned from, the soviets in the illusions of ruling vs good governance.
one only has to actually read the history of the fertility problem, to see how their methods, exactly the same as now, creates situations that new similar methods could not undo…
one only has to look to them to see them making all the stuff the left thinks they support and were about, illegal in their own country!!!!!!!!!!
why would they let the disease they planted come full around and infect them?
Let me remind you narrow minded, short sighted naysayers:
We conquered violent crime with strict gun ban laws, reduced the lung cancer rate of all restaurant goers, eliminated poverty and homelessness with rent control, and racism is unknown in NYC because we have hate crime legislation and strict anti-discrimination laws.
So I looked around and what did I see? Another big problem– Fat people. Everywhere I look, fat people. You can’t miss them. You think that’s not a problem for our city? How about the wear and tear on city bus seats, the extra fuel to lug their big asses around everyday? How about the extra space they take up on the subway and sidewalks? You think that’s free? I’ve got studies — they show we could save a bunch of CO2 emissions if we could fit more people on every subway, taxi, and bus ride — but how can we do that if I have a city full of lard asses taking up double the space?
You think that storm was a fluke? I’m telling you it was a warning — if we don’t reduce soda consumption and lose weight in this city, the risk of more super storms from unnecessary CO2 emissions caused by you fat asses is going to ruin us. Then there’s the added load on sewers and other utilities. Do I need to explain that too? Try and see the big picture for a change, I’m not doing this job for my health.
Obesity and global warming – these are not joking matters. What if the UN relocates? How would that make us look?
Now don’t get me started on the earbuds – that’s another problem in this city. How do I know? My staff and even my wife has them stuck in their ears all the time, and they can’t hear what I’m saying half the time about popcorn and soda or other critical PSAs.
For anyone that has wanted to quit smoking, but not been successfull ….. check out e-cigs. Nicotine without the noxious smoke and tar.
It’s the tar that hurts your lungs, not the nicotine. The e-cigs emit water vapor that doesn’t stink and hang in the air like smoke. I think they’re a miracle and wish they’d been available decades ago.
My kids are much happier when they come for a visit now.
I know it’s incidental, not “hard data”, but I’m pretty sure that my time from birth to age 3 or so with smoking grandparents we visited often screwed up my lungs. Of course, Mt. St. Helens didn’t do me any favors, either.
Still, I don’t advocate a statist solution. I just avoid smokers.
Artfldgr:
actually, you did get it wrong.
But that’s alright.
I was merely talking about the arguments used by those advocating the public smoking ban, and comparing it to the arguments used by those advocating the large drink ban, and saying even on that level there’s no comparison.
I well understand that there are motives behind the motives, and arguments behind the arguments, and agendas behind the agendas, and that it’s all part of a larger picture.
I agree that smoking is noxious to many non-smokers, perhaps the majority, which would make it a very large group.
I am among them. I hate cigarette smoke. But I do think the smoking ban should be up to the restaurant owner, although I personally benefit from a blanket ban.
As far as the health consequences go, I also agree that for things like asthma and allergies and just general noxiousness, the negatives of second-hand smoke are very clear. But the campaign against it was also based on supposedly strong evidence of very serious health problems like cancer and cardiac disease, and that turns out to have been somewhat more iffy and controversial. That’s what I was referring to.
Drinking too much pop theoretically leads to obesity etc. and costs your fellow-citizens for supporting your health costs. In short, ANYTHING you do that isn’t the safest possible course is a cost on your fellows, risible and subject to regulation. This is a corollary of “The personal is the political”, I suppose. Me, I think that the personal needs the political like a fish needs a bicycle.
For whatever its worth . . .
As someone who is asthmatic – YES, second-hand smoke is a problem. It is MY problem and smokers have no right to make their addiction cause my problem to be worse. I don’t need a study to detemine this. My lack of breathing around smoke tells me all I need to know.
Concerning Neo’s post. From what I can tell it isn’t that the judge was against Nanny Bloomberg; it was because it was too arbitrary. One store can still sell the “bad for you stuff” while a store next door could not. That was the reason the judge ruled against this. But, manybe I misreading the other reports on this as well.
Charles: that’s in the post. The judge’s ruling was based on the fact that it was too arbitrary.
I think certain TV programs (The View, eg) should be banned because they damage the ability to think.
I still smoke, but I respect anti-smoking regulations. I do think that banning cigarettes outside is over the top. And I don’t throw cigarette butts on the ground, nor do I throw used plastic bags in the ocean.