If New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg gets his way, Big Gulps and any other super-sized sugary soft-drinks will go the way of smoking at the Oyster Bar and Times Square peep shows and trans-fat-deep-fried corndogs.
Earlier this week, Bloomberg proposed a citywide ban on any serving of sugary-sweet soda more than 16 ounces in restaurants, movie theaters and street carts throughout the Big Apple.
In a column posted Friday on CNN.com, Edward Morrissey, a senior editor and correspondent for the conservative commentary website hotair.com said Bloomberg overreached (again) when he "hit the panic button" over super-sized soft drinks
Morissey writes:
Bloomberg claims that he needs to have the cops throw themselves between consumers and liquid refreshment to save citizens from themselves and prevent obesity. Big Gulp, meet Big Brother.
This is just the latest intervention staged by Hizzoner. His past decrees banned smoking, not just indoors in places of business, but also outside of businesses and in parks. Bloomberg also banned restaurants from cooking with artificial trans fats. In those cases, he took a lot of criticism as being a health hysteric and a food nanny, but at least an argument existed that consumer choice might have been irrelevant. Restaurants don't usually advertise all of their ingredients on the menu, for instance, and few people get asked permission before someone lights a cigarette in the doorway of an establishment.
Jon Stewart did not take Bloomberg's menacing of to his (apparently) beloved Big Gulp lying down. "Mister Mayor, this ban makes your assinine look big," Stewart said on Thursday's The Daily Show. "And what do you do about Slurpees?! A drink that lives in the netherworld betwixt physical states. Is it a solid? A liquid? Ultimately a gas?"
"I'll never forgive you for this!" Stewart cried, after admitting that the 32-ounce sugary beverage crisis placed him in the distressing position of actually agreeing with pundit Tucker Carlson.
Hear J-Stew wax outraged in two clips below. +May include beep-censored coarse language.+
IMAGE: Big Gulp. Photo by section215/Wylio.
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