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Boston councilor says it's time to tax soda and other drinks made with sugar
By adamg on Mon, 01/13/2025 - 2:19pm
The Boston City Council on Wednesday will consider a request from Councilor Sharon Durkan to look at a "sugar-sweetened beverage tax" as a way to curb various health woes - in large part by raising money that could be used to fight scourges such as obesity, heart disease and diabetes.
Durkan (Back Bay, Beacon Hill, Fenway, Mission Hill) says Boston should join several other cities, including Philadelphia, San Francisco, Boulder, Oakland and Seattle, which now use money from taxes on sweetened beverages, including soda, sports drinks and tea, for public-health efforts, in particular in minority communities that consume more sweetened drinks.
In her formal request to send the measure to a committee for a public hearing and possible drafting of an ordinance, Durkan writes:
Research has demonstrated that sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) are a significant contributor to adverse health outcomes, including type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and obesity, which disproportionately affect low-income and minority communities ...
Evidence from cities with existing SSB taxes shows that tax revenues have been effectively used to address public health and equity concerns and fund health promotion, nutrition education, access to healthy foods, and early childhood development programs, with a significant portion of funds benefiting communities most impacted by health inequities; and
WHEREAS, The implementation of an SSB tax in Boston could generate significant revenues that could be reinvested in public health initiatives and equity-focused programs
to further reduce health disparities and improve community well-being.
One group that has been pushing for sugar-drink taxes across the country is a non-profit founded by former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg - who shifted to the tax idea after his proposal to ban supersized soft-drink containers in New York failed.
The council will consider Durkan's request to study the idea at its regular Wednesday meeting, which starts at noon, more or less, in the council's fifth-floor chambers in City Hall.
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Comments
Of course
I'm sure that they'll also be taxing the immensely sugary coffee drinks that Boston's white-collar workers are so fond of, right? With such sedentary work, those people need all the help they can get to stay healthy, and it would be a terrible shame to ignore their plight, not to mention all the potential tax revenue.
doubt it
Doubt it. This seems to be aimed at prepackaged food and drink. Not Dunkin
Then.. there are many of us who do not have sugar in their coffee. So how would this work for us? You want people making minimum wage who already can't get coffee orders right half the time to be able to remember to press a button so one person gets charged a sugar tax and someone else does not.
This is a disaster waiting to happen.
Without taking a side in the
Without taking a side in the debate over what to tax and what not to tax... I would add in regarding anything that items like coffee at Dunks is already taxed , there is already tax revenue coming in from that coffee no matter how much sugar is in it. Soda and candy meanwhile falls under the food provision of MA tax codes and is not taxed.
So one could argue most of those "bougie" things people buy like little cupcakes on Newbury street, coffee and tea, even healthy salads are all going to be taxed already and already offer money in the form of the prepared foods tax. In many communities in MA the local city/town even gets a cut of that money too.
So as I said, without taking a side on the debate itself, the argument being made initially by the initial commenter is flawed.
That's not the point of a sugar tax
Everything is taxed equally so there's no incentive to buy something healthier under the current system.
In terms of changing habits, an important question is if the fee should be added to the shelf price or charged at the register as a tax. My guess is that people only think about the shelf price. If you add a $0.25 tax on sugar drinks, people aren't going to change habits if the price of the sugar and non-sugar drink are the same in the cooler.
I mean I read the text again
I mean I read the text again and there seems to be quite a bit of focus on where they funds should go.
Regarding the collection , I'm not sure how you'd do that unless it the way you'd like unless it was much higher upstream. There is no mechanism in place to do what you suggest. From a logistical point of view it would be very difficult to enforce and implement.
My point still stands , there's already a local tax on top of prepared foods of all types.
If your goal is to reduce sugar and increase healthier options the suggestion could be to use the funds raised by a sugar tax to directly subsidize healthy options. Take the money from the candy and implement an initiative to get healthy snack options in bodegas and package stores in low income or high obesity communities. Healthy food often is more expensive to stock, theres more spoilage etc, so why not overcome that using the funds from the high sugar foods?
Like a ...
Dunkin' Death Tax and Affleck can make a whole new commercial about it.
Yeah, this is just moralizing at disadvantaged folks
The proposal is full of fatphobia. "Hey, people in larger bodies, we're proposing legislation to make sure people aren't like you."
It's bad science as well; dietary habits aren't as connected to weight or health as we think. There have been studies on kids adopted as infants, and their body types and health data are more similar to their genetic family than their environmental family. Food moralizing and teaching kids to restrict has more negative consequences than just providing a variety of foods and allowing kids to self-regulate.
Also, if we are looking at correlation (which still isn't causation), other factors are tied to bigger negative effects on health data than sugar consumption. Why aren't we taxing meat? Non-whole-grains? Providing tax rebates on produce purchases? Providing tax rebates for exercising?
Oh, I know, or really looking at social determinants of health and fining people and companies for behavior that causes stress and further marginalization (like city council bills that say that fat people and poor people are a problem and need laws passed to control them).
laughably uninformed
A 12 oz. can of soda containing nearly 40 grams of raw sugar is in no way comparable to non whole grain bread, or meat, in terms of health effects on the body. Full stop.
If you need a non-metric reference, that's 1.7 tablespoons in a single can, or the equivalent of roughly 15 sachets of sugar like you'd put in a coffee.
And you have absolutely no data to "correlate" that soda is somehow less bad than these things. Argue about carbon footprint for meat, sure, but that's not at all related to personal health.
This pearl clutching over fat phobia is also as histrionic as it is laughable. As is the idea that weight isn't intrinsically connected to diet. So much misinformation in one post proving that conservatives aren't the only ones who can use fake science to masquerade their moralizing beliefs.
“ allowing kids to self
“ allowing kids to self-regulate. “
Sure kid. Eat all your Halloween candy in one go then we’ll go to the supermarket and buy everything you want.
Surely this is something
Surely this is something better done at a state level, politely there is very little the City of Boston itself can accomplish to fight obesity. The UK does it as a nationwide tax which while I'm not personally a supporter, the evidence shows it has worked to drastically cut sugar consumption.
Any evidence provided?
Any evidence provided?
Or just more misguided nonsense of gov’t trying to tax the enfeebled masses under the guise of marching them toward utopia?
Leslie Knope would be so
Leslie Knope would be so proud.
Paunch Burger
I’ll just take the child size.
This is easier and has been shown to work
Mexico has instituted warning labels on foods that have "excessive" calories, sodium, fat etc. The results are mixed, but it certainly educates people and helps them to understand what they are eating. (As opposed to a one-size-fits-all tax that can be avoided by shopping in Chelsea or Dedham.)
P.S. I agree that this would make more sense to be handled on a statewide basis.
Yay
A tax that will be paid mostly by people in minority communities.
Thank you
Thank you for this comment.
THIS THIS THIS THIS
This is what I avoided saying but I was thinking it too.
"let's tax poor people so we can force them to eat better" wtf concept is this?!?
Not sure I agree.
If minority communities *only* had the option of sugary drinks, I'd understand your point. But if there are always sugar-free options available side-by-side, what's wrong with a "sin" tax that would incentivize better choices?
It's a flat tax
That's the problem.
Despite the disingenuous bleating from the centrist imbecile who proposed this, we have the money to fight disease. We just send it overseas and give tax breaks to churches instead.
I am a left of center guy,
I am a left of center guy, but 100% behind soda taxes. Here is why:
- Is it racist? In Boston the diabetes rate among Black and Latino adults is 3 times as high as white people's. Roughly 15% vs 5%. See link below, page-8.
- Nobody needs to suffer from thirst because we are imposing a $0.10 tax on a can of soda. We are blessed to live in a city with the safest, healthiest and cheapest form of hydration on the planet: our tap water. Even for a cheap and always thirsty dude like me, staying well hydrated is practically free and it never raises my blood sugar. According to my last water bill it cost $0.02/gallon (sewer rate included). If I drink a gallon a day, that's $7/year. And I don’t find carrying a refillable water bottle to be such an insurmountable task .
- Why shouldn’t poor people who get free healthcare (Medicaid) also pitch in for their sins once in a while? “New American Diabetes Association Report Finds Annual Costs of Diabetes to be $412.9 Billion”. Guess who's paying for that.
- Taxing tobacco has proved very effective in curbing the habit.
- If we must wait for a solution to be perfectly fair to everyone to implement it, it's never going to happen.
And we haven't even touched on the environmental cost of junk beverage.
https://www.boston.gov/sites/default/files/file/2023/04/HOB_DIABETES_202...
There's more to this than you
There's more to this than you're letting on. I'm a left of center, relatively well-off white guy, diagnosed Type 2 just under 6 months ago. I cooked most of my own meals and did not drink soda except once in a great long while.
Diet is far from the only thing that impacts a person's risk of developing T2D. (Calling out T2 specifically because Type 1 is an autoimmune condition and is in many ways a completely different beast.)
Chronic levels of high stress. Poor sleep. Inherited genetic risk (if you've got parents/grandparents who are/were T2D, your risk of developing it is higher). Other health conditions. All of these things contribute to your overall risk profile for T2D.
Put yourself in the shoes of someone working a late-night, low wage job, with poor commute options (because our transit seems incapable of running past midnight), etc. etc. It's almost as if there's a health cost to being a have-not in a deeply unequal society...
In order to change behavior
The tax needs to be much, much higher than something like 10 cents. When a 20-ounce bottle of soda at CVS is $3, having the sugar version be $3.10 won't deter people from buying it.
The Mass. tax on cigarettes is $3.51/pack, and a pack of cigarettes runs from $7 to $20/pack depending on brand. In order to meaningfully change behavior with respect to soda, you'd probably need something closer to 10 cents an ounce, not 10 cents a can.
Otherwise it's just a money grab, and the Councilor's request even admits it's just about money. There's no evidence that sugar taxes have actually changed behavior, just that jurisdictions imposing a tax have had money from the tax to spend on programs (duh!).
Boston is a "majority minority" city
...so what does this comment even mean?
In all seriousness, saying this targets so-called minority communities is like saying laws that require people to wear a seatbelt disproportionally target minority communities. Or laws against fentanyl target the poor. Like sure maybe there's a correlation, but it's patently obvious the law is about health and safety. To say nothing of the fact that soda is ADDICTIVE and has more money behind its lobbyists than cigarettes. These concoctions are scientifically proven to be harmful to our society and that harm disproportionally affects these communities you claim to care about. Standing in the way of regulations like this HARMS poorer people, it does not help them. You're making identical arguments to what Big Sugar lobbyists would say.
We're helping...
But we're not...
Yes the studies say "sugar consumption is down" but do not explain if its down because people made better choices or just were priced out of food so they went without?
I'm sorry this reeks of a poor tax. You're taxing something that alot of people eat and live on. Did anyone ever stop to think that maybe people are eating this garbage not for the lack of nutritional information but plain old lack of funds. By taxing it, you just made the cost go up, thus making it unaffordable now.
Ever buy produce at Stop & Shop in Brigham Circle? You'd have to take out a second mortgage to get them.
You want people to eat better? Get healthier choices to be more affordable. Its absurd that in this country you can buy a package of Ramen Noodles for 25 cents that contains enough sodium for a week, yet an Apple cost 3 bucks. Something is rotten here, and its not the apple.
But no instead we do silly taxes on things instead of fixing the problem.... We're helping.. but we're not.
Well said!
My first reaction was this tax could be a good thing but not so sure anymore. It’s complicated.
Firmly agree
What pisses me off the most is that Durkan thinks she's going to save people with this soda/sugar tax, but what these taxes will really do is go straight to the General Fund so the Legislature gets even more money to waste on pork (ironically). See also cigarette, gasoline and marijuana taxes, and the lottery.
It's condescending, rude, ignorant, and does nothing other than soothe her white guilt.
Apples
Gala and Cosmic Crisp apples this week at Stop and Shop are 99¢ per pound. The average apple weighs about half a pound.
Not sure where you're buying your $3 apples, but this week at Stop and Shop $3 will get you half a dozen.
(Organic Cosmic Crisp apples at Whole Paycheck will run you $2.99 per pound, but a) organic and b) Whole Paycheck. Other varieties are a similar cost and you get 10% off if you're a Prime member … or if you know the phone number of someone who is.)
This proposal is about taxing
This proposal is about taxing soda and sugary drink; a highly diabetes-inducing product that has zero nutritional value.
Unlikely
Unlikely. Sugar and its various forms like corn syrup are cheap.
How about public water fountains?
Ones that worked and were clean. If you're out of the house and thirsty, it's almost impossible to get a drink that isn't a $3 bottle of water.
Even if you have a refillable container, you've got to find someplace to fill it.
A bottle of water and a bottle of Coke cost the same. Maybe if bottled water was $1 and soda was $3, more people would drink water. But if water is $3 and soda is $3 (or $3.25 w/sugar tax) people are going to buy the soda just so they don't feel ripped off.
Instead of a sugar tax, make clean, cold water cheap.
Would you look at that?
Someone who understands incentives.
I'm pitching a tent.
It's almost like
People generally resent you less when you use carrots instead of sticks
Retail greed
Water IS sold at significantly less cost than soda and sports drinks, about 50% less. It’s your retailers that want to capitalize on the high margin.
Haggling with CVS never works
But I still try it every time.
This is why you need some sort of regulation since retailers, especially C-stores, are just going to consider the sugar tax as a way of increasing the price of non-sugar items.
Better yet …
…. make free municipal water more available. Year round. You hardly ever see a public water fountain any more. They are like pay phones.
Bottled water is no safer and takes a tole on the environment with its transportation and plastics.
I believe it is still the law that any establishment that serves food and drink must give a glass of tap water to anyone who asks. But some refuse and there are no consequences.
seconded
There are bubblers on the Common which haven't worked for at least 30 years. Long ago, they replaced the old concrete constant-flow ones with a flawed design which broke almost immediately.
And a dearth of them overall. Is there even one on City Hall Plaza?
Should be on sidewalks throughout the city. Make them taps instead of fountains so you can refill bottles.
City should also end price gouging of convenience stores for water. No excuse for selling water at $2 or more. Make it a loss-leader condition of their licensing to charge at cost.
Public fountains are the only option
There was a guy out my way who created a "tap map" of businesses that would let you fill a water bottle. I don't know if people took advantage of it; I do know that it wasn't really promoted by any of the businesses who participated. They want customers, not people walking in wanting water and not paying anything for it (and yeah, maybe they'll buy something, but maybe they won't). Water fountains work but need to be well designed to resist vandalism. Some jackwagon is always going to try to destroy it.
Float a trial balloon and
Float a trial balloon and propose a (poor) tax to win the praise of dogoodniks and thereby burnish one’s so-called progressive credentials so you can get down to the real work of gentrifying, aiding developers, big tech, gaming, pharma and on and on. Phooey!
Starbucks anyone
Shots of sugary liquor, sugar, whipped cream....Starbies is a tax bonanza. So where is a cannoli tax, gummy bear tax, cupcake tax, cotton candy tax, ice cream tax....It is a screw job. The wealthy just get what they want and can pay, a kid with a five dollar bill at the corner store gets screwed.
if its so important lets cut other less important city spending and fund the no fat initiative.
Good government are two words that seldom fit in a sentence.....
As has already been pointed out...
...prepared food is already taxed.
Pay for Higher priced soda
Or drive over the bridge to Quincy and Shop there?
I know people who Drive to New Hampshire to buy cigarettes. Quincy sounds like a breeze compared to that
I bet the majority will shop elsewhere if they buy enough soda that it is a concern, those who can't travel to shop will need to take the advice from Henry Hill in the Movie Goodfellas. and I'm paraphrasing ..can't shop in Quincy? "Fuck you pay me"
The Stop & Shop in Dedham is
The Stop & Shop in Dedham is convenient. I thought this sort of "fat tax" was unnecessary because everyone in Boston is biking to work.
No Thank You
Can we please not turn Boston into one of those other overly "progressive" cities mentioned above that think they are doing good but are just really harming their constituents. This would indeed be a tax and it would be paid mostly by lower income folks. This proposal is just another measure to make some people feel good about something in the form or argument of equality, when actually harming folks that are already most likely disenfranchised. Stop taxing us as a way to solve problems that are not an issue.
Agreed
The motivation behind this is to get as much revenue as possible from people who won't fight back, and won't know how much tax they're paying. Couple this with an overweening white savior complex, and you see why these kinds of taxes are a horrible idea.
It also works in a circular motion - people pay taxes to the government, the government gives benefits to the poor, and the poor pay higher, unseen taxes right back to the government.
Agreed.
The way to reduce sugar consumption as part of public health initiatives is to stop regulating it as food. It’s not food. It’s an additive. Some people have addiction issues with it.