NEW YORK CITY – In a few weeks, a judge will hear sides on New York City’s salt warnings. The city’s Board of Health currently requires chain restaurants to post a symbol (a salt shaker within a triangle) beside foods that have more than 2,300 milligrams of sodium, Politico reports.

The National Restaurant Association brought a First Amendment suit against the city, claiming the health board overstepped its role by compelling restaurants to post data with which they have issues. The Board of Health countered that in its mission to protect city residents, it must require warnings for food items that could be risky.

“In its zeal to make New York City the first in the nation to require sodium warnings to be placed on menus and to isolate sodium as the nutritional culprit deserving of that special ignominy, the Board has once again acted without any legislative guidance and in disregard of multiple recent legislative efforts to address sodium; and has dived head first into a controversial and evolving scientific fray to adopt a regulation with as many or more legal flaws as the Soda Ban,” the National Restaurant Association’s brief read.

Many are watching this case, especially in light of New York City’s prominence in leading the way to improving our nation’s health, such as by banning transfat, attempting to regulate soda consumption and smoking prohibitions.