Drinking, Food

Judge Overturns NYC Soda Ban; NOW WE JUST NEED SOME POP ROCKS!

Court overturns Bloomberg soda ban. Coming soon: Bloomberg buys New York Supreme Court...

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In case you haven’t been following along with developments inside Mike Bloomberg’s militarized nanny state, last year our elected tyrant outlawed the sale of soda in sizes over 16 ounces at movie theaters and other public places. The mayor felt that nobody needed more than 16 ounces of soda in one sitting, notwithstanding the fact that nobody asked him what my mother thinks.

The law sparked a lawsuit, and today a judge overturned Mayor Bloomberg’s ban.

Bloomberg was not immediately available for comment, most likely because his lawyers were busy drawing up documents to move forward with Bloomberg’s new purchase of the “New York Supreme Court”….

It’s actually a very serious blow for Bloomberg’s ban. New York Supreme Court Judge Milton Tingling found that the ban couldn’t even survive rational relationship review, and held the ban to be arbitrary and capricious. From the Wall Street Journal:

The city is “enjoined and permanently restrained from implementing or enforcing the new regulations,” New York Supreme Court Judge Milton Tingling decided Monday.

The regulations are “fraught with arbitrary and capricious consequences,” the judge wrote. “The simple reading of the rule leads to the earlier acknowledged uneven enforcement even within a particular city block, much less the city as a whole. The loopholes in this rule effectively defeat the state purpose of the rule.”

Josh Blackman has some further analysis on the decision.

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Wow. I’ve been living under Blooomberg for so long I forgot that “so let it be written, so let it be done” is not a sufficient state interest for the curtailing of individual liberties.

The ban was set to go into effect tomorrow and would have affected restaurants, arenas, and movie theaters — but not some delis and supermarkets.

Most importantly, it would have been stupid. You can’t legislate good health. Moreover, you can’t legislate portion control, which is really what the mayor was trying to do.

Besides, if drinking a 32-ounce soda forces you to take a bathroom break that saves you from watching even five minutes of Jack the Giant Turd Layer, who’s to say that the soda size was “unhealthy”?

I can’t wait till we elect Christine Quinn so all Mayor Mommy can do is buy all the movie theaters in the city and voluntarily choose to reduce his profits by selling only 16-ounce drinks. ‘Cause rich people always like putting their money where their straws are.

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Judge Halts New York City Soda Ban [Wall Street Journal]
Instant Analysis: Bloomberg Soda Ban “Arbitrary and Capricious” & “Eviscerates” Separation of Powers [Josh Blackman’s Blog]

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