New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's controversial ban on large sugary drinks was supposed to go forward today, but was halted by a New York state judge, Milton Tingling.
“[The city] is enjoined and permanently restrained from implementing or enforcing the new regulations," Judge Tingling ruled.
Bloomberg vowed to appeal. The mayor grew testy when asked if he had wisely spent so much political capital on the soda ban.
“I got to defend my children and you and everybody else and do what’s right to save lives,” he angrily said. “Obesity kills. There’s just no question about it.”
“The rule would not only violate the separation of powers doctrine, it would eviscerate it,” Tingling wrote. “Such an evisceration has the potential to be more troubling than sugar sweetened drinks.”
“It is arbitrary and capricious because it applies to some but not all food establishments in the city, it excludes other beverages that have significantly higher concentrations of sugar sweeteners and/or calories on suspect grounds, and the loopholes inherent in the rule, including but not limited to no limitations on refills, defeat and/or serve to gut the purpose of the rule,” Tingling wrote.
Bloomberg's proposed law came under heavy scrutiny when it was proposed, including from the NAACP who said the law unfairly targeted minorities.
