Will California Restaurants Push Water Over Soda?

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Published
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Will California Restaurants Push Water Over Soda?

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Some members of the California legislature want to pass Bill SB-1192, which would govern which drinks restaurants can offer children. But the bill is complicated.

If the bill is enacted, would it hurt the soda business in California?

SB-1192 reads:

This bill would require a restaurant, as defined, that sells a children’s meal that includes a beverage, to make the default beverage water, sparkling water, or flavored water, as specified, or unflavored milk or a nondairy milk alternative, as specified. The bill would not prohibit a restaurant’s ability to sell, or a customer’s ability to purchase, an alternative beverage if the purchaser requests one.

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If someone does not request the drink, do they get the soda anyway? Apparently, people have to ask for an alternative. It is anyone’s guess how many will.

Opponents of the bill believe that people should drink whatever they want. The bill does not say people can’t but only that they don’t have to. That seems more complicated all by itself. One opponent of the bill, Assemblyman Matthew Harper, said: “Seriously, like, what’s next? Are we going to insist that you have to have kale in your salad unless you specifically ask otherwise?”

The bill does not have much in the terms of teeth since most restaurants allow people to order milk or water over soda anyway. Maybe a restaurant will change more, but that could bring a lot of negative publicity.

If the bill passes, people in California can order water instead of milk, but they probably already can.

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Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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