Boston Mayor Bans Sugared Beverage Sales on City Property

Boston Mayor Tom Menino is taking a page out of NYC Mayor Mike Bloomberg and the other nanny staters by canning sales of soda on city property.

Mayor Tom Menino issued an executive order to ban the sale of sugary drinks on Boston city property on Thursday.

The mayor’s office said Menino is issuing this order because of the link between sugary drinks and rising obesity rates and health care costs. The order sets science-based standards for what’s considered a healthy beverage and what can be sold or served on City property, according to a city press release.

The policy applies to cafeterias, vending machines, concession stands, and beverages served at meetings, City-run programs, and events where food is purchased with City dollars.

Back in 2004, Menino banned soda and junk food from being sold in public school vending machines, and now he’s taking his battle city-wide.

I can't wait until the next city budget comes through and the loss of revenue requires either spending cuts or tax hikes to cover the lost revenue from contracts that enable beverage makers to sell soda on city property.

Moreover, there's a question as to just how far this policy extends - does this mean that vendors will be unable to sell soda on city streets or roadways from vending carts or trucks?

To be clear, this is what Menino intends:

City buildings and departments have a six-month grace period before they’ll be required to phase out the sale of so-called “red” beverages, or those loaded with sugar, such as non-diet sodas, pre-sweetened ice teas, refrigerated coffee drinks, energy drinks, juice drinks with added sugar and sports drinks. The order allows for the sale of “yellow” beverages such as diet sodas, diet iced teas, 100 percent juices, low-calorie sports drinks, low-sugar sweetened beverages, sweetened soymilk and flavored, sweetened milk. “Green” beverages, such as bottled water, flavored and unflavored seltzer water, low-fat milk, and unsweetened soymilk can continue to be sold. The promotion of “red” beverages on City property through sponsorship agreements with City departments, including banners and advertising panels on vending machines, will be prohibited.

Pretty much, unless you're selling bottled water or diet soda, you're going to have to find another source of revenue if you're one of those vendors.

Obesity didn't start with soda and sugared beverages. It got a whole lot worse as people chose to live a sedentary lifestyle where they don't exercise or take care of themselves, all while supersizing their food intake by choice and ignoring proper portion control to manage their weight.

Now, Menino is going to harm small businesses, including distributors, bottlers, and vendors who sell these beverages to a public that wants them because he thinks that soda is the root of the obesity epidemic.

Just as a New York City Councilman entered a bill to eliminate the sales of toys with Happy Meals yesterday turned out to be a poster child for obesity himself (and whose wife complained about his eating habits), that's nanny-staters for you.

Nobody seems to like City Councilman's Leroy Comrie's proposed Happy Meal regulations. On Tuesday when Comrie announced the proposed law—which aims to set "nutrition standards for distributing incentive items aimed at children,"—he acknowledged that, weighing in at 335 pounds himself, he was hardly a model of healthy eating (in fact that was part of his point). So no surprise that both the Post (Councilman, Heal Thyself) and the News (City Councilman Leroy Comrie's bill to ban toys in Happy Meals with over 500 calories is fat-headed) today ran editorials decrying the plan as a dud from a self-hating, publicity-hungry tub of lard. And not happy to stop there, the Post went to the next level and got Comrie's weight-watching, yoga-doing wife Marcia on the record to complain about her rotund husband's eating habits.

In the Councilman's case, he chose to eat unhealthy food options - and his weight (and wife) suffered for it.

When presented with healthy options, he not only took them, but ate up whatever else he could find. You can't simply excuse that because there are only fast food options available. Even fast food restaurants have healthier food options - but Comrie chose to ignore them and ate what he wanted. That's on him.

The same goes with soda. There's nothing wrong with soda, if you have a healthy lifestyle and live by a simply motto - moderation.

Destroying the Tourism Industry One Tax and Fee at a Time

States and localities have long thought that they had a sure way that they could raise revenues without incurring the wrath of their constituents. They'd simply tax the bejeebus out of anyone coming to visit from out of town.

They'd impose taxes on airport access, car rentals, meals, and hotel stays, to cover operating costs, or to fund new projects.

Boston's Mayor Thomas Menino is pushing to do just this in to the teeth of a recession all while the hotel and tourism industry is reeling as people stay home instead of traveling.

Currently, the meals tax is 5 percent. Beginning Aug. 1, the tax jumps to 6.25 percent. Under the mayor's proposal, an additional hike would bring the tax to 7 percent, effective Oct. 1.

As for hotel taxes, the current rate is 12.45 percent. If the plan is approved, the tax will jump to 14.45 percent.

Wisconsin just raised its car rental taxes significantly - from $2 to $18, to fund the construction of a rail link.

All over the country, states and localities are raising taxes and fees to balance their budgets, or to pay for new projects:

Popular tourist destinations were hit especially hard. Among places where taxes rose:

•Hawaii. The hotel room tax increased from 7.25% to 8.25% on Wednesday and will rise to 9.25% in July 2010.

•Nevada. The room tax will increase up to 3 percentage points, to a maximum of 12%. In Las Vegas, the hotel tax jumps from 9% to 12%. Reno's tax was already 12% and is not scheduled to change.

•New Hampshire. The tax on rooms and restaurant meals rose from 8% to 9% and was extended to include recreational vehicles at campgrounds.

•Massachusetts. Cities were given authority to raise the hotel tax from 4% to 6%, in addition to the state tax of 5.7%. Taxes on eating out will rise from 5% to 6.25% statewide, plus another 0.75% if cities choose.

•New York City. The city, which raised its hotel tax March 1 to 14.25%, not counting other fees, will start charging more for Internet reservations.

It that adds up to a significant chunk of the cost for a typical trip.

I take regular trips every year for leisure and have found that 30% of the costs to rent a car take the form of taxes and fees not imposed by the rental company but by the locality or state. It's insane. These localities are taxing me for the privilege of coming to their localities to spend my money on businesses and enterprises in their areas for a period of time before returning home.

I'm not alone in finding this situation infuriating. The recession is leading car rental companies to reduce their inventories, pushing the prices for the car rentals up, which only adds to the taxes owed on said rentals, and increasing the overall cost for a vacation.

There I was, going over a pending car-rental reservation and grumbling over the profusion of fees and taxes that increased my base rate by another 42 percent.

There was, of course, state tax (8 percent), county tax (1.5 percent) and city tax (1.5 percent). There were also the usual-suspect add-on fees, including an airport concession recovery fee (11.11 percent), customer facility charge ($3.50 per day) and vehicle licensing fee ($.20 per day), all of which were unavoidable as there was no convenient non-airport location.

There is one way I've found that can help reduce the overall cost of car rentals, and that is to buy Entertainment books annually. Since I take trips every year and make other purchases from the books, they more than make up for the $30-40 the books can cost. In fact, the Entertainment book more than pays for itself when booking car rentals. They have special rates that can save anywhere from $40-100 for a car rental over what you might find using Kayak, Orbitz, or any of the other travel websites, including Priceline. You have to play around with the various coupon codes offered, and might find that a 2-car class upgrade does better than 10% or 15% off for a weekly rental or vice versa, depending on which rental company you go with.

Still, those taxes and fees are unavoidable, and they mean that I have less money to spend on trinkets or restaurants or other items during the course of my stay.

So, while Boston looks to raise its taxes, it has a ways to go to being the highest tax burdened jurisdiction for travelers. That distinction goes to Chicago, which imposes more than $40 in taxes per day on tourists.