Kansas Legislators Pass ‘Anti-Bloomberg’ Bill

Legislation would ban localities from regulating the nutritional content of food sold at restaurants, vending machines and retail.

March 22, 2016

TOPEKA, Kan. — The Kansas House last week advanced “anti-Bloomberg” legislation to prohibit cities and counties from regulating the nutritional content of food sold in restaurants, vending machines or other retail establishments, the Lawrence Journal-World reports. Instead, such regulations could only be enacted by the Legislature.

The legislation is named after former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, whose administration almost successfully banned the sale of large sugary drinks at New York City restaurants and other venues, until a court ruling pulled the plug on the ban in 2013.

Opponents of the measure include the Kansas Rural Center, which says that the language of the bill is broad and could interfere with local healthy food initiatives, notes the news source. “Efforts to expand local food systems including farmers markets, community gardens, hoop house production, or other community efforts that support the growth of farm-to-consumer food access are all at risk of mired growth and economic vitality with this bill,” the group said in a statement.

According to state Rep. Gene Suellentrop, the bill is intended to ensure a patchwork of food regulations are not enacted across the state.  “Someone might find your Dr Pepper has too much sugar and you'd have to sell Gatorade instead,” he said, adding, “There are many, many examples of those types of applications. And again, what we're looking for is consistency and uniformity here.”

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