“Arbitrary and capricious,” states Justice Milton A. Tingling Jr. in a NYC ruling invalidating a ban on large sugary drinks – but the larger question is: “Have business ethics gone awry when attempting to mandate healthy actions by the citizenry?”
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg felt the health of New Yorkers would be improved with the sugar ban. Perhaps that is true but isn’t health also improved with a ban on smoking and who knows what else?
When, if ever, is it ethical to mandate public action and behavior?
It should come as no surprise that this question is not so easy to answer. Despite its defeat, Mayor Bloomberg and Michael Cardozo, his chief counsel, are rather confident this ruling will one day be overturned in favor of the Board of Health who seems to understand what is best for us.
Yet, in a New York Times article dated March 11, 2013 by Michael M. Grynbaum, we learn how precarious the tight-rope to enforce the 16-ounce maximum drink size just might be. For example, Mr. Grynbaum points out that Justice Tingling in ruling on the ban cites that: “…beverages with a high milk content, for instance, would be exempt — and would apply only to some food establishments, like restaurants, but not others, like convenience stores. “
So under the ruling, a 32 ounce, double-thick, creamy chocolate milkshake or coffee drink might have been OK, but a 17 ounce soda dispensed at a gas station convenience store would call out the state patrol (not really, but it’s fun to think about!).
More absurd, as Mr. Grynbaum states:
“The judge also wrote that the fact that consumers can receive refills of sodas, as long as the cup size is not larger than 16 ounces (was also a major inconsistency)…”
Therefore, it would be permissible to sit at a counter, and if the restaurant so allowed it, a patron could drink a gallon of soda, so long as it was done one, 16 ounce cup at a time. However the greater and much more serious issue is ethical and deals with how people view one another.
The Classes of Glasses
It was understandable that organizations such as the National Association of Theater Owners of New York State and the American Beverage Association would enter into the fight. They had a great financial stake in the proposed laws. Drinking huge containers of soda in theaters has been an American tradition since, I suppose, the days of Charlie Chaplin movies. And the American Beverage Association certainly wants to protect our right to glug away for hours. But to be brutally honest, neither of those organizations has budgeted funds to send get-well cards to those diabetics or morbidly obese who made a lifetime of washing down their pound of French fries with a half-gallon of soda.
So it is commendable that Mayor Bloomberg tried to do something about obesity in his city. He is not a villain, nor is his Department of Health, nor the physicians who must treat those diseases that arise from obesity. However, Mayor Bloomberg is a bit hypocritical – and in ethics, hypocrisy is a bitter soda to swallow.
Ethics should not know class.
If I enter the sanctuary of an upscale coffee bar where, for $6 I can drink an extra large mocha drink with chocolate chips and whipped cream containing nearly 600 calories, why is that permissible to the city fathers and mothers, but not a $1.19, 20 ounce cup of soda containing 250 calories from a convenience store?
Is the frequency of ordering the problem? It doesn’t seem to be. If one waits around that coffee bar long enough, the same folks often show up day to day to order pretty much the same drinks. Let’s see; that’s more than 4,000 calories a week in chocolate chip whipped cream drinks. No one seems to be making much of a fuss about that.
Is the venue the problem? It doesn’t seem to be. A drive-thru coffee bar is not that radically different than a drive-thru convenience store. It is the kind of drink we’re talking about, it seems and maybe the person drinking that drink – and that’s where the train starts to run off the tracks.
We must come to the ethical question of who has the right to judge whom? Could it be that certain drinks or habits or dietary preferences or choice of dining spots are deemed “good,” while others are deemed, “objectionable?”
Are those who go to certain venues making judgments on those who go to other venues? Are those who pay $6 a drink projecting values on those who can only afford $1.19? Again, we must ask the question: “Is it Ethical to mandate healthy actions by the citizenry?”
Application and Wisdom
If I am convinced to my core that a habit is needlessly shortening the lives of my fellow citizens, am I not ethically bound to say something? I believe I am. If scientists and physicians, educators and social workers, politicians and judges strongly agree with me, don’t we all have a right to say something? I think we do. It is how cigarette companies were punished; it is why we have laws against drunk driving and drug abuse. In all of those cases, the consequences are fairly evenly applied.
A drunk driver is a drunk driver; a store selling cigarettes to a 10 year old is liable; a person using pain-killers around dangerous machinery may be brought to task. Yes, I know the law is not always fairly applied, but it should be and if those laws were not applied fairly the courts may hear our cases and over-turn rulings.
What of caloric intake?
If a 16 ounce soda served at a convenience store is the maximum allowable caloric intake and size, shouldn’t the coffee drink, or a juice from a smoothie hut, an alcoholic cocktail from a swanky bar or a concoction served to weightlifters in a health club also conform?
Ethics are not built on class, or location, or venue but on right and wrong. The proposed law was wrong not because of its intent, but its unequal application.
What I say is good for you, applies to me as well. Anything else is flat soda.
What are your thoughts on the ethics of mandating social behavior?
