Soda taxes win in Oakland, San Francisco and Albany

By David DeBolt
PUBLISHED: November 8, 2016 at 8:21 pm | UPDATED: November 9, 2016 at 8:51 am
East Bay Times

Three Bay Area cities bolstered a national movement to tax soda to reduce consumption on Tuesday as measures to do just that in San Francisco, Oakland and Albany won handily.

Oakland and San Francisco are the largest cities in the country to approve such a tax and open the door for other cities to replicate their campaigns. And in tiny Albany, voters resoundingly approved the tax.

They will join Berkeley, which two years ago became the nation’s first city to pass a sugar-sweetened beverage tax.

With all 279 precincts reporting, Oakland’s Measure HH won with 61 percent approval. In Albany, voters passed Measure O1 with 71 percent voting yes, according to election figures. And in San Francisco, Measure V passed with 62 percent of the vote.

“It will be a tremendous victory for public health,” said Lynn Silver, senior adviser at the Public Health Institute in Oakland. “Having big cities like Oakland and San Francisco approve a soda tax will make it easier and more likely to be successful in other jurisdictions across the country.”

“We respect the voters’ decisions,” said Joe Arellano, a spokesman for the campaign against the measures. “We remain concerned that any revenue raised will go to the general funds where the cities can spend it however they choose. Unfortunately, low-income and hardworking families are struggling in San Francisco.”

Never before have Oakland and San Francisco seen this level of fundraising and spending. The American Beverage Association spent millions to defeat the measures, while billionaire and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg poured his own millions into passing them.

For months, voters have been drowning in ads posted on social media, running on television and showing up in mailboxes. In an attempt to defeat Measure HH in Oakland, Measure V in San Francisco and Measure O1 in Albany, the beverage industry heavily relied on the cries of local business owners who say the tax will run them out of business.

Opponents have dubbed it a “grocery tax” that could be applied to any item in a store and raise prices on food items such as vegetables, bread and butter, rather than soda. Even U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders — who opposed a soda tax measure in Philadelphia but not any in the Bay Area — was drawn into the fray after opponents used him in ads to try to defeat the tax until he demanded they stop.

All three Bay Area measures will raise taxes on sugar-sweetened beverages by one penny per ounce and require a simple majority approval. Previous measures in Richmond and San Francisco have failed. This election, San Francisco scaled back its 2014 tax of 2 cents per ounce to 1 cent.

Berkeley made history in 2014 as voters passed a soda tax by a 3-1 margin, a signal to other cities that there was a way for small campaigns to defeat “Big Soda.”

Berkeley leaders contend the tax is working: Soda consumption is down. A UC Berkeley study released in August found the Berkeley tax was on track to collect about $1.5 million a year. A poll conducted by the university researchers found a 21 percent reduction in consumption of sodas and other sugary beverages by low-income residents since the tax went into effect.

Supporters say Measure HH in Oakland could raise about $6 million a year to fund programs to highlight the health risks of soda, particularly among poorer residents, and to reduce consumption. Albany’s Measure O1 would exempt distributors serving businesses with less than $100,000 in gross receipts per year.