Joseph Ax
Reuters
3/11/2013
A judge on Monday invalidated New York City’s plan to ban large sugary drinks from restaurants and other eateries, one day before the new law was to take effect.
State Supreme Court Justice Milton Tingling in Manhattan ruled the new regulation was “arbitrary and capricious” and declared it invalid, after the American Beverage Association and other business groups had sued the city challenging the ban.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg had touted the ban as a way to reduce obesity. But beverage manufacturers and business groups had called the law an illegal overreach that would infringe upon consumers’ personal liberty.
H/T Ann McElhinney
Update: Read the Judge’s ruling [PDF] via The Wall Street Journal, Judge Halts New York City Soda Ban
…In his ruling, Judge Tingling found the Board of Health’s mission is to protect New Yorkers by providing regulations that protect against diseases. Those powers, he argued, don’t include the authority to “limit or ban a legal item under the guise of ‘controlling chronic disease.’ ”
The board may supervise and regulate the city’s food supply when it affects public health, but the City Charter clearly outlines when such steps may be taken: According to Judge Tingling, the city must face imminent danger due to disease.
“That has not been demonstrated,” he wrote.
Judge Tingling also suggested that Mr. Bloomberg overstepped his powers by bringing the sugary drink rules before the Board of Health, which is solely appointed by him. The City Council, he wrote, is the legislative body “and it alone has the authority to legislate as the board seeks to do here.”
City health officials, he wrote, aren’t assigned the “sweeping and unbridled authority to define, create, authorize, mandate and enforce” the health code…
