The people have spoken. And, at least in the San Francisco Bay Area, they don’t mind that extra charge on sugary beverages if it means curbing obesity and raising a little dough for city coffers. Soda taxes were on the ballot in three California cities Tuesday and passed in every single one. Albany, Oakland and San Francisco will now charge an extra penny per ounce for sweetened beverages sold within their cities.
"This is the start of a national movement,” said Larry Tramutola, a California political strategist who organized the campaigns in San Francisco and Oakland. Michael Jacobson, co-founder and president of the Center for Science in Public Interest in Washington, said we can expect to see more cities and states follow suit.
A soda tax measure had come before San Franciscans before, but failed to garner enough support. (Oh, what a difference two years makes.) Berkeley became the first city to approve a tax on sugary beverages in 2014.
Political consultant and California City News editor Mike Madrid was asked about the bevy of soda tax measures shortly before the election. The local push, he said, resembles the plastic bag ban's fight in California.
"For ten years they were unable to get through the Legislature because the plastic bag manufacturers had so much money, and as a result, they took their fights to the local city councils,” Madrid said. “After about eight years of doing this, a third of cities passed restrictions, and then the Legislature finally responded."