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Take a big gulp, New York: Hizzoner is about to give you a pop.
Nanny Bloomberg unleashes his ban on large sodas on March 12 - and there are some nasty surprises lurking for hardworking families.
Say goodbye to that 2-liter bottle of Coke with your pizza delivery, pitchers of soft drinks at your kid's birthday party and some bottle-service mixers at your favorite nightclub.
They'd violate Mayor Bloomberg's new rules, which prohibit eateries from serving or selling sugary drinks in containers larger than 16 ounces.
Bloomberg's soda smackdown follows his attacks on salt, sugar, trans fat, smoking and even baby formula.
The city Health Department last week began sending brochures to businesses that would be affected by the latest ban, including restaurants, bars and any "food service" establishment subject to letter grades.
And merchants were shocked to see the broad sweep of the new rules.
"It's not fair. If you're gonna tell me what to do, it's no good," said Steve DiMaggio of Caruso's in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn. "It's gonna cost a lot more."
And consumers, especially families, will soon see how the rules will affect their wallets - forcing them to pay higher unit prices for smaller bottles.
Typically, a pizzeria charges $3 for a 2-liter bottle of Coke. But under the ban, customers would have to buy six 12-ounce cans at a total cost of $7.50 to get an equivalent amount of soda.
"I really feel bad for the customers," said Lupe Balbuena of World Pie in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn.
Domino's on First Avenue and 74th Street on the Upper East Side is doing away with its most popular drink sizes: the 20-ounce and 2- liter bottles.
"We're getting in 16-ounce bottles - and that's all we're going to sell," a worker said.
He said the smaller bottles will generate more revenue for the restaurant but cost consumers more.
It will also trash more plastic into the environment.
Deliveryman Philippe Daniba said he had brought countless 2- liter bottles of soda to customers over his 19 years at the restaurant. The ban, he said, "doesn't make sense."
Industry-group officials agreed.
"It's ludicrous," said Robert Bookman, a lawyer for the New York City Hospitality Alliance. "It's a sealed bottle of soda you can buy in the supermarket. Why can't they deliver what you can get in the supermarket?"
Families will get pinched at kid-friendly party places, which will have to chuck their plastic pitchers because most hold 60 ounces - even though such containers are clearly intended for more than one person.
Changes will be made at the Frames bowling alley in Times Square, where 26-ounce pitchers are served at kids' parties, said manager Ayman Kamel.
"We're going to try to get creative," he said, noting drinks with 100 percent juice are exempt from the ban.
"We're figuring out a way to have freshly squeezed juice for the birthday parties. We might have to raise the price about a dollar or so."
Dallas BBQ at 1265 Third Ave. will retire its 60-ounce pitchers and 20-ounce glasses, manager Daisy Reyes said.
"We have to buy new glasses," she said. "We're in the process."
And if you're looking for a night of bottle service at a Manhattan hot spot, be warned: Spending $300 on a bottle of vodka no longer entitles you to a full complement of mixers.
The carafes in which mixers are typically served hold 32 ounces, and the most common mixers - sodas, cranberry juice and tonic water - will be limited. Only water and 100 percent juice will be unlimited.
"Oh, my God. Seriously?" said Lamia Sunti, owner of the swanky West Village club Le Souk Harem. "It's not like one person is going to be drinking the whole carafe. It's silly."
The rules are hard to unravel.
Alcoholic drinks and diet sodas are not subject to the ban, nor are fruit smoothies if they don't have added sweetener, or coffee drinks and milkshakes if made with 50 percent milk.
But what about drinks with small amounts of added sugar? Vendors must determine if the beverages have more than 3.125 calories per ounce.
But they should double-check their math: Violations cost $200 each.
MAYOR POPPINS' RULES
Mayor Bloomberg's nannyish ban on large drinks goes into effect March 12. Any restaurant or shop that receives a Health Department letter grade will face a $200 fine if it sells a sugary beverage larger than 16 ounces. Among the new rules' casualties:
What's wrong with this pitcher?
If you're out eating with your family, you cannot order soft drinks in a pitcher. Even at children's birthday parties in family- friendly eateries like Chuck E. Cheese's, you'll be forced to buy individual cups of soda.
LESS SODA, MORE DOUGH
If you order a pizza, you cannot get a large bottle of soda delivered with it. Already, Domino's locations across the city are doing away with 1 and 2 liter bottles of soda, deliveryman Philippe Daniba says. They'll sell smaller bottles instead - costing you more money and increasing
plastic waste.
IT'S A COCKTAIL NIXER
If you get bottle service at a city nightclub or restaurant, you cannot also get a carafe of cranberry juice like the one hostess Maggie is serving up here at Le Souk Harem in the West Village. Tonic water and other beverages are also limited, even though they are only used as mixers.
brad.hamilton@nypost.com
Originally published by Brad Hamilton and Susan Edelman.
(c) 2013 The New York Post. Provided by ProQuest LLC. All rights Reserved.
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February 26, 2013 @ 1:54 pm
This guy is in his third term? Somebody must have voted for him; I wonder who will admit it.
February 26, 2013 @ 4:24 pm
Third term abortions…are they legal in NY?
February 26, 2013 @ 5:04 pm
They might be, but what do you do with the toxic waste afterwards? I know of no place that would accept it, except maybe Chicago.
February 26, 2013 @ 6:15 pm
He also works to keep those welfare checks and food stamps coming. That is what got him his third term and will get him his fourth, fifth, sixth and so on.
February 26, 2013 @ 2:12 pm
Beer mugs & beer pitchers next?
February 26, 2013 @ 6:16 pm
He hasn’t even scratched the surface yet.
February 26, 2013 @ 2:29 pm
Once again the idiocy of a power-mad official, who assumes he is much smarter than us and has the right to, hmm, “tell us what to do with our own bodies,” is proclaiming laws which will do more harm than good. Businesses will be hurt, consumers will pay more, people will still drink just as much soda, and the environment will suffer because of the large increase in plastic containers needed to fulfill this dictate. Is there no way to get these people to shut-up and leave us alone? We are riding the “stupid train” to our own destruction.
February 26, 2013 @ 3:30 pm
Hopefully someone will sue this moron and his communist henchmen and a court with (hopefully) some common sense will throw this stupid, idiotic, unconstitutional law out. Judging by the interviews in this article, though, they are just going to roll over and take it. I can only hope none of them ever move to Texas. That would lower the average IQ in both states.
February 26, 2013 @ 2:34 pm
They are already telling us how much soda we can drink, just wait until they take our guns away from us to see what they will shove down our throats!
Don’t think so, keep drinking the cool aid, I mean soda.
Also what will it cost to enforce this? What’s next???
February 26, 2013 @ 4:17 pm
If you allow them to take your guns, you deserve whatever they do to you.
February 26, 2013 @ 4:36 pm
How dare you ask, “What will it cost to enforce!” That is so unpatriotic! Just think of all the government jobs it will provide! And all the fines, the millions in fines and penalties!
For a broke city this is a wind-fall!
And the wind never stops blowing. Like speed limits or parking penalties, it is created for one reason only. And that reason is not to encourage people to care for their own health. No!
Non-tax related revenue is the magic word to governments. Like “unearned income,” to workers who really…well..work.
Like “residual income” to an Amyway dealer.
Oh, I don’t expect they will enforce it, as we think of enforcing; they will, hmmm, how to say it? They will MINE this law.
February 26, 2013 @ 2:45 pm
New Yorkers elected him… why don’t they impeach him unless they really cannot make these types of decisions for themselves
February 26, 2013 @ 6:20 pm
He is in his third term. It should be obvious by now that the voters that work for a living are now outnumbered by those who vote for a living.
February 26, 2013 @ 2:47 pm
If Hizzz Onor runs again and is voted in, the voters of NYC who voted for him must be forced by Dictator O see be psychoanalyzed by a licensed shrink who will be paid by Obamacare. This should bankrupt the system. Then we can bring back our Constitutional government that will truly represent the citizen voters.
February 26, 2013 @ 3:03 pm
One simple question to all NY city residents, why haven’t you started a recall election? Isn’t time you got a mayor that actually believes in the Constitution? It isn’t time that you got a mayor who doesn’t think you are total idiots and not capable of making decisions for yourself? Come on guys wise up and drop him like a bad habit.
February 26, 2013 @ 3:33 pm
LMAO at the stupid voters in NY who were tricked into voting for this Democrat! If you want the constitution followed, you will have a much better chance with a Conservative in charge! Just look at what Dem leadership (there’s a true oximoron!) has done to bankrupt Detroit, Chicago, California, Etc!
February 26, 2013 @ 3:38 pm
Must be the same fools who voted for Obama!
February 26, 2013 @ 6:21 pm
You think? Obama is another one that keeps those welfare checks and food stamps coming.
February 26, 2013 @ 4:45 pm
So is there a law that stops restaurant customers from BYOB?? Maybe all the establishments should start letting customers bring in their own 2 liter or whatever suits them until Bloomberg gets the message. And he wants to advise the president on gun control?!?!?! That’s what scares me. This is his method of controlling obesity and he wants to advise on gun control. Get that MORON out of town on the next rail!
February 26, 2013 @ 6:24 pm
Normally that would depend on the policy of the establishment owner. If there isn’t such a law, you can bet there will be one soon.
February 26, 2013 @ 4:53 pm
Bloomberg says that he frequently rides the New York City Subway, particularly in the commute from his 79th Street home to his office at City Hall. An August 2007 story in The New York Times asserted that he was often seen chauffeured by two New York Police Department-owned SUVs to an express train station to avoid having to change from the local to the express trains on the Lexington Avenue line.[27]
another limo lib
nanny state elitist
its all for looks
he rides the subway??!
with the po lice
February 26, 2013 @ 4:55 pm
In 2001, the incumbent mayor of New York, Rudy Giuliani, was ineligible for re-election, as the city limited the mayoralty to two consecutive terms. Several well-known New York City politicians aspired to succeed him. Bloomberg, a lifelong member of the Democratic Party, decided to run for mayor as a member of the Republican Party ticket.
Voting in the primary began on the morning of September 11, 2001. The primary was postponed later that day. In the rescheduled primary, Bloomberg defeated Herman Badillo, a former Congressman, to become the Republican nominee. Meanwhile, the Democratic primary did not produce a first-round winner. After a runoff, the Democratic nomination went to New York City Public Advocate Mark J. Green.
February 26, 2013 @ 4:57 pm
Where does it say in the role of Mayor, he/she can make such an order?????? Recall him. He needs the lesson, and soon.
February 26, 2013 @ 5:41 pm
We used to have only 12-ounce cans of soda available and the world was not as “big” then as it is now, so I think the mayor is headed in the right direction. At least, he is trying to bring back some sanity to the world. He needs to stand strong in his food convictions and only people with the same common sense should be up for election when it is time to vote again. Before he is out of office, he needs to go after the stuffed crust pizzas, high-fat ice creams and meats, too. Out with the bad, in with the good. Healthy change is never easy nor accepted. And think, the children that have never seen a vegetable or tasted real fruit juice because their parents chose to eat foods and drink drinks without any worth to them will finally learn the truth and maybe not have to suffer with the health problems that the rest of the country is suffering with.
February 26, 2013 @ 6:17 pm
You’re missing the point here. Whether it is good for you or not, or whether it is healthy or not, is not the problem. The problem is government intrusion. Let me ask you, where are you going to draw the line? If this is OK then are you going to object if they outlaw beef? How about beer? What about plastic bags (children suffocate in them, you know)? Then let’s go after cars. About 33,000 people died in them in 2011, which is untold thousands more than died from guns, or sugary soda, or even Iraq and Afghanistan. If we outlaw cars, the population will not really increase due to the number of people who will starve to death, but we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it. In the meantime, we can call it “Progressive Utopia.”
February 26, 2013 @ 5:55 pm
This pig is worth $24 BILLION dollars. What is that problem dumbocrats keep whining about–the rich not forking over more of their money? I think this clown should be first on the list. Why should he care what it costs a family at a restaurant?? I say, stop going out to eat. When businesses lose their business, having to lay off employees, and then maybe closing, maybe then people will realize that these commie fools have no basis in reality. He’s dumber than a slug.
February 26, 2013 @ 7:10 pm
When are New Yorker going to wake up about liberals? I don’t see Republicans going power mad, only Democrats and liberals.
February 26, 2013 @ 9:24 pm
NYC is the cesspool of liberalism so what do you expect?
February 27, 2013 @ 10:17 am
Maybe what needs to be done is for all beverage companies to just quit selling any beverages to NYC. I know it hurts the businesses and local beverage companies, but there will probably come a time that they will have to comply with some other beverage restriction. This man is becoming a dictator instead of a mayor.