Banning large sodas is legal and smart

The industry stoked the fires of public discontent with its campaign against the “inconsistencies” in the soda ban. Why doesn’t the ban apply to milky drinks, why can 7-Eleven sell large sugary drinks, and why not ban refills? Justice Milton Tingling Jr. bought both industry arguments: It won’t work and it is inconsistent. He went so far as to call the ban “fraught with arbitrary and capricious consequences” and filled with loopholes. Again, we find a double standard.

Bloomberg did what every other politician does: balance public health and safety with realpolitik. Consider one of the judge’s major arguments: balancing public health and economic considerations is “impermissible.” This judicial reasoning makes no sense. If policy makers could not balance economic consequences, virtually every law in America would be flawed. There is another huge problem with this argument. It assumes that unless public health does everything, it can do nothing. The whole art of politics is compromise. The mayor gets a lot of what he seeks to fight obesity, but not everything.