New York Soda Ban Rises From the Grave

Nanny state totalitarian Michael Bloomberg is no longer Mayor of New York. But progressive tyranny works like a ratchet; notch by notch it is pulled tighter, never giving way in the opposite direction. So not even the most absurd of his restrictions are going anywhere. His soda ban was held up in court. No matter; his successor Bill de Blasio is taking up the cause:

Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration urged the state’s highest court on Wednesday to allow New York City to impose former Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s proposed ban on large sugary drinks in restaurants and other venues. …

The proposed ban would prohibit restaurants, mobile food carts, delis and concessions at movie theaters, stadiums or arenas from selling sugary drinks in cups or containers larger than 16 ounces. It was one of the last big public-health initiatives from the Bloomberg administration, which had successfully banned smoking in many public places, eliminated trans fats in local restaurants and campaigned against high salt intake.

Given the city’s plunge ever deeper into moonbattery, the ban is now justified in racial terms:

“The city’s proposal to cap the size of sugary drinks responds to the alarming obesity and diabetes crisis” affecting the city’s minority groups, [de Blasio] said.

If “sugary drinks” only poisoned lowly white people, no one would care. But since they allegedly oppress the sacred minorities that comprise a majority of the city’s population, they are a critical issue for government to address.

Several judges suggested the large-drink ban could be a slippery slope. “Couldn’t you ban hamburgers altogether from New York City?” Jonathan Lippman, the court’s chief judge, asked.

Richard Dearing, chief of the appeals division at the city’s Law Department, called the question hypothetical, but when Judge Lippman pressed, he replied that the city could “take an appropriate step” if the scientific evidence existed.

“Where do you draw the line?” Judge Lippman asked.

There is no line. That’s the point with progressivism. It just keeps progressing forever. There is always another freedom that it had never occurred to anyone to take away.

In defense of this latest outrage, we are told that the ban isn’t a ban. Via The Atlantic:

The portion cap rule isn’t a ban, and it isn’t about restricting freedom or choice. It’s simply a regulation on the size of containers, not on the amount people drink.

When they get around to the hamburger ban, they could start by dictating that a hamburger can be no larger than your thumbnail. That way it wouldn’t restrict freedom or choice.

Maybe moonbats can apply this to their fondest wish: a ban on guns. You can buy any gun you want, so long as it fits into a holster the same size as the miniature hamburgers.

The Atlantic piece does ask a good question – and answers it too:

If you don’t live in New York City, why should you care? Because cities can initiate change that might take federal agencies decades to act on. It took the federal government 18 years to ban lead in paint after New York City passed its law, but at least it acted eventually. In recent years, the New York City Board of Health has barred restaurants from putting artificial trans fats in food; the FDA is now considering a broader ban on artificial trans fats for the nation. And the BOH required chain restaurants to post calorie counts on menu boards, which will soon become a national mandate as part of the Affordable Care Act.

What is inflicted on moonbatty New Yorkers today will be rammed down everyone else’s throat tomorrow. But don’t worry; it’s for our own good.

mini-soda-cans
No one is restricting freedom, just the size of the container.

On a tip from Lauren. Cross-posted at Moonbattery.

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