Judge Blocks Bloomberg's Soda Ban

A victory for freedom.

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/mayor_bloomberg_believes_themselves_enfmR96eplT88TyLQInuoI

"A state judge today put a cork in City Hall's plans to ban Big Apple restaurants and other venues from selling large sugary drinks -- a bubble-bursting defeat for Mayor Bloomberg, who has made public health a cornerstone of his tenure.
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Judge Tingling said Bloomberg and the Board of Health overstepped their bounds, to enforce rules that should be established by the legislative bodies.

“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.”

Tingling sided with a coalition of store keepers, unions, theater owners and beverage sellers who have been fighting Bloomberg’s ban that was set to go into effect tomorrow.

“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."