If at first, you don’t succeed, then try again -- on the other side of the country.
Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, whose bid to ban larger sizes of sodas and other sugar-sweetened drinks in the nation’s largest city earned him a Bronx cheer from the state’s highest court, has given almost $10 million this year to support a pair of Bay Area initiatives that would increase taxes on the beverages.
Bloomberg, the billionaire co-founder of an eponymous financial data services firm, has donated about $5 million to San Franciscans United to Reduce Diabetes in Children, a political committee supporting Measure V, which would levy a penny tax on every ounce of sugar-sweetened beverages sold in the city. The former mayor also has contributed more than $4.7 million to Citizens for Healthy Oakland Children, which is supporting Measure HH, a proposal that would also add a one-cent tax on every ounce of soda and other sugar-sweetened drinks.
Yet for all Bloomberg’s largesse, his contributions haven’t yet prevented soda tax advocates from being financially outgunned by the beverage industry. After a relatively slow start over the summer, the the Washington D.C.-based American Beverage Association has picked up the pace, giving $18.9 million to fight the San Francisco measure; $5.4 million on the Oakland battle; $500,000 to oppose Measure 2H, a similar Nov. 8 ballot item in Boulder, Colo.; and $50,000 against Measure O1 in Albany, Calif.
The quartet of high-stakes ballot measures represent a potential turning point for both the soda industry and public health advocates. Beverage manufacturers are casting the initiatives as grocery taxes that will cost consumers and erode profits in the $278 billion soda industry, while advocates see a rare opportunity for voters to address a public health issue.