Health Board Approves Ban on Large Sugary Drinks
Seeking to combat rising obesity rates, the New York City Board of Health approved on Thursday a ban on the sale of large sodas and other sugary drinks at restaurants, street carts and movie theaters, enacting the first restriction of its kind in the country.
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, who proposed the measure, celebrated its passage on Twitter.
“NYC’s new sugary drink policy is the single biggest step any gov’t has taken to curb obesity,” he wrote. “It will help save lives.”
The measure, unless blocked by a judge, will take effect in six months. The health board vote was the only regulatory approval needed to become binding in the city, but the American soft-drink industry has strongly opposed the plan and vowed this week to try to fight the measure by other means, possibly in the courts.
“This is not the end,” Eliot Hoff, a spokesman for New Yorkers for Beverage Choices, an industry-financed group opposed to the soda-sales restrictions, said in an e-mail moments after the vote. “We are exploring legal options, and all other avenues available to us.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/14/nyregion/health-board-approves-bloombergs-soda-ban.html?_r=2&ref=nyregion
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