Dennis Loper serves as the executive director of the California State Outdoor Advertising Association (CSOAA). He is also the President of Capitol Strategies Group in Sacramento, CA. This piece originally appeared in the Contra Costa Times.
As you may have already heard, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors recently voted to pass a set of ordinances targeting sweetened beverages. These regulations prohibit outdoor advertisements on city property for an array of beverages, including sodas, organic drinks, juice drinks, and teas, and require an obtrusive and misleading warning label on signage in privately owned spaces.
This mandate illegally restricts various companies from doing business unencumbered within San Francisco.
The Board's actions blatantly overstep constitutional rights to free speech, mandating speech in the form of a warning label occupying at least 20 percent of each ad. Further, these restrictions uniquely and unfairly harm businesses engaged in outdoor advertising -- or ones that make or sell sweetened beverages -- while allowing ads to continue without "warning" through other mediums like TV, radio, newspapers, and magazines.
The board has compounded one ineffective decision with another -- scapegoating beverages as the cause of a range of public health issues, and pinning blame on outdoor and physical signage.
Such piecemeal thinking is not driven by facts, and is certainly not the driver of good public policy.
This overstepping action is guided by the board's illogical belief that such limitations will help improve public health. The truth is these ordinances are unlikely to impact public health, but do set a troubling precedent with serious legal implications.
We all know what it takes to be healthy, generally speaking: eat balanced meals, moderate portion size and exercise regularly. However, the board's new rules do nothing to promote this common-sense approach.
Instead, these "feel-good" pieces of legislation wrongly punish one product and one form of media in a way that is opportunistic at best.
Companies that sell sweetened beverages now cannot advertise under the same rules as companies who sell other products. Businesses that provide space for or install outdoor ads will lose revenue from customers who dedicate their marketing dollars elsewhere.
But that's not even the most worrisome part about these new rules. This action paves the way for more local laws that violate civil liberties.
The board pitched these laws as "Round Two in the battle against Big Soda," but these measures are more likely to harm San Franciscans than the beverage industry. The city relies on revenue from advertising on city space to fund important community programs.
Arbitrarily restricting such revenue will only reduce funding the city can use for beneficial public purposes, including proactively combatting community health concerns in a comprehensive manner.
In addition, San Francisco's small businesses are burdened with ensuring these mandates are implemented in their venues, adding another hurdle for them to compete with larger chains.
There are plenty of ways cities can work to make being healthy easier for their residents.
Programs that build bike lanes or increase access to fresh foods have measurable results that encourage people to make balanced choices in their daily lives without encroaching upon constitutional rights or opening up municipalities to costly litigation.
But few of these programs advance political agendas, or make for catchy headlines.
Cover Image Credit: Flickr User vox_efx, https://flic.kr/p/5EGERB via (CC BY 2.0)