Berkeley Soda Tax Brings in
$116,000 in First Month
By Andrew Stelzer May. 19, 2015
Berkeley’s tax on sugary drinks
brought in $116,000 in its first month, in line with projections made before
voters overwhelmingly approved Measure D last November.
“We have delivered for the city
of Berkeley,” said Berkeley City CouncilwomanLinda Maio, one of several council
members who gathered on the steps of City Hall on Monday to announce the
numbers. She estimated that the tax would bring in at least $1.2 million in its
first year.
The penny-per-ounce tax, the
first of its kind in the nation, took effect March 1. It is levied on the
distribution of most sugar-sweetened beverages, including sodas and energy
drinks.
City Councilman Laurie
Capitelli said the funds will be used for programs aimed at reducing obesity,
poor dental health and diabetes among children.
“What we really want to do in
10 years is collect no tax,” Capitelli said. “We don’t want soda consumed in
this community. We don’t want 50 percent of our African-American and Latino
children facing diabetes in our lifetime.”
The Berkeley City Council has
already approved advance funding of $500,000, and wants half of that to go to
the school district’s nutrition education program. Tuesday night is the first
meeting of an expert panel — the Sugar-Sweetened Beverage Product Panel of
Experts — that will advise the City Council on which specific health programs
to fund or establish.
Panel member Joy Moore, a
cooking and gardening instructor at Berkeley Technical Academy, said the rest
of the allocated money will be directed to community-based groups and programs,
with an emphasis on programs that serve low-income children and people of
color.
“The place we can make the most
difference is in the schools,” Moore said. “Education is going to be important
to everyone because we need all people to implement, to buy into, to understand
the dangers that overconsumption of sweetened beverages will do.”
The nine-member panel plans to
consult with the community and will make recommendations to the City Council by
Oct. 1. Local organizations will be able to apply for community-based funds.
“We are tired of burying our
family members,” said Xavier Morales, executive director of the Latino
Coalition for a Healthy California, and another member of the expert panel. “We
have a diabetes crisis in Berkeley.”
He said that having dedicated
revenue to fund programs to help people with diabetes or families at high risk
“will really help us in Berkeley.”
California Beverage Association
spokesman Roger Salazar, who was standing only a few feet from the jubilant
press conference, called the tax measure “very confusing.”
“We’ve heard from a lot of
grocers, retailers, restaurateurs who want to comply with the measure but can’t
get real clarity of what it applies to and who it applies to,” Salazar said.
During the month of March, 36
entities, mostly larger distributors, paid the tax. Maio said the city is doing
person-to-person outreach to inform smaller merchants about how the tax might
affect them. Measure D stipulated that the tax take effect on Jan. 1 — but to
give time to businesses to adjust, the council delayed the start date until
March 1.
“We want to do a truly good job
of implementing this, because we know we are being watched very carefully,”
Maio said, “and that particularly the (soda) industry is watching very
carefully. … We want it to work well.”
Maio also praised Dairy Queen’s
recent decision to remove soda from its children’s menus — following the lead
of Burger King, McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Chipotle and Panera.
“We think we are at the
beginning of a continuum that has to move forward for the health of our kids,”
she said.
“People think first love is
sweet, and never sweeter than when that first bond snaps… Yet that first broken
heart is always the most painful, the slowest to mend, and leaves the most
visible scar. What’s so sweet about that?” Stephen
King, Joyland
Let what will be o'er me;
Give the face of earth around,
And the road before me.
Wealth I ask not, hope nor
love,
Nor a friend to know me;
All I ask, the heaven above
And the road below me.
Robert Louis Stevenson
