Vote Goes Up For Santa Fe’s Soda Tax

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Today, February 8th, 2017,  the City Business and Quality of Life Committee which includes two persons, Mike Harris and Signe Lindell, is scheduled to meet at 11 a.m. to consider the 2-cents-per ounce tax proposed by Mayor Javier Gonzalez.

The meeting today will not be a public meeting but the full council is purposed to meet for a public hearing and vote on March 8th.

The soda tax is purposed to increase health and ensure funding education for pre-k in the city.

The proposal has support, according to Santa Fe New Mexican Local News, but Rio Grande Foundation is opposing the tax, accusing the proposal is a creating a way for political lifestyle police.

“The resolution doesn’t lay the groundwork for anything but a healthier community, and that’s something I absolutely support,” Gonzalez said in October in response to a question about more sugar taxes.

Santa Fe, with a 51.2% Latino population is a city in need of reducing consumption of sugary drinks, where the mayor sponsored a resolution directed by the city manager to “explore active ways of reducing sugar intake among Santa Fe’s Residents.”

Nearly two-thirds of boys and girls ages 2 to 19 drink at least one sugar-sweetened beverage daily, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Also according to research, Latino kids consume higher amounts of sugary beverages, putting them more at risk for heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and unhealthy weights.

Pricing disincentives, such as sugary drink taxes, that have been proposed to lower consumption of sugary drinks—including soda, sports and energy drinks, fruit juices and fruit drinks that contain less than 100 percent juice, and flavored milk—in several jurisdictions, have helped lower consumption of sugary drinks in places like Berkely, California and may help decrease health risks in other cities reports, Havard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

The proposal is estimated to raise over $7 million for funds to expand early childhood education, and Mayor Gonzalez is pushing for a special election for the council to happen before March 2018, but would still need to be decided upon within sixty days by voters.

To read more on this update, click here.