Home California Wicks Bill Would Prohibit Sugary Drinks at Checkout Aisles

Wicks Bill Would Prohibit Sugary Drinks at Checkout Aisles

by ECT

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Assemblymember Buffy Wicks (D-Oakland) introduced AB 765, the California Healthy Checkout Aisles for Healthy Families Act, which would prohibit stores from placing sugar-sweetened beverages at checkout aisles.

“The evidence is clear: the sugar-sweetened beverage industry is fueling a public health crisis of obesity, diabetes, and heart disease,” said Wicks. “My bill helps consumers stick to healthier choices by stopping the manipulative practice of putting sugar-sweetened beverages at the checkout line.”

Placing sugary beverages at checkout lines is a longstanding marketing tactic that induces customers to buy and consume products they didn’t intend to. A 2008 study in the Journal of Targeting, Measurement, and Analysis for Marketing found that the people who buy soda and candy from the checkout line are often the same people who tried to avoid those items elsewhere in the store. And a 2014 Front-End Focus study found that 45 percent of shoppers they interviewed had bought soda from the checkout line in the previous month and that many of those people did so more than once a month.

As the effects of sugary drinks on the human body have come into greater focus, so too have the negative impacts to individual and public health from these marketing practices. A 2010 analysis by the journal Diabetes Care found that people who consume 1–2 cans of soda per day or more had a 26 percent higher chance of developing type 2 diabetes than those who avoided sugary drinks. In a 2013 review, Professor Frank Hu at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health found sufficient scientific evidence that reducing population-level consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages would help prevent obesity and associated health problems like diabetes and heart disease.

The public health impacts of increasing soda consumption also result in higher healthcare costs. A 2013 report by the research arm of financial services giant Credit Suisse estimated that 30 to 40 percent of all U.S. healthcare costs could be linked to excess sugar in people’s diets, much of which comes from sugar-sweetened beverages.

AB 765 addresses an important piece of the soda consumption issue by taking temptation out of the checkout line and making sure consumers are provided with healthier options. AB 765 also gives consumers what they already say they want: A 2017 survey by the Center for Science in the Public Interest showed that 67 percent of customers would “prefer not to have soda, candy, chips and other high-fat, high-sugar foods at checkouts at grocery stores.”

###
Assemblymember Buffy Wicks represents California’s 15th Assembly District, which includes all or portions of the cities of Oakland, Richmond, Berkeley, Emeryville, Albany, El Cerrito, San Pablo, Pinole, El Sobrante, Hercules, Kensington, and Piedmont. You can learn more about Asm. Wicks at a15.asmdc.org

You may also like

11 comments

Ray Feb 20, 2019 - 5:55 pm

OMG!

Melanie Feb 20, 2019 - 6:18 pm

The sugary drink police? What next?

Awesome Feb 20, 2019 - 8:37 pm

This is good. Can we replace with alcohol.

Dirty Harry Feb 20, 2019 - 9:45 pm

WTF? How much is this stupid idea going to cost us. My God woman, get your head out of your ASS! Go crawl under a rock until your term is up. What a wasted life.

KB Feb 21, 2019 - 2:28 am

Thank you wise overlords for protecting me

Simonpure Feb 21, 2019 - 7:03 am

Really? FIX OUR DAMN ROADS if you need something to do. Jeeez

Lola Saavedra Feb 21, 2019 - 5:50 pm

Wouldn’t it be someone with a name like “Buffy” to stick her nose into other people’s eating and drinking habits! What business is it of her’s to dictate who can consume what? Who made her the guardian of our health? My great-grandmother lived to 103 while drinking a coke each day from the time she was a child!

Elizabeth E. Parker Feb 21, 2019 - 6:18 pm

Hey Buffy! My health is MY business, not your’s! I pay for my health care out of my own pocket and it doesn’t impact anything anyone else does! Stop worrying if someone grabs something from the checkout area? It saves having to backtrack to the soft drinks aisle and what’s by the checkout stand is usually refrigerated. What’s next on your list to have government try to control? Meat? Ocasio-Cortez wants cows eliminated because they fart! Do you do that as well, Buffy?

Christy Feb 22, 2019 - 7:06 pm

I grab what I want at the checkout stands because it is convenient and refrigerated. I have to stand in long lines because there are not enough workers. Maybe if companies would hire enough workers the lines would be shorter and people could checkout faster and not think about being thirsty. Get out of my life! I am an adult and will choose what I want! Fix roads, increase teacher salaries, increase nurses salaries, etc…. There are better things to worry about than what we as adults are choosing!

Tom Ford Feb 23, 2019 - 2:39 pm

Hey BUFFY! Take your “My bill helps consumer stick to healthier choices” motto and “put it where the sun don’t shine.” Who made you the drink police? What I choose to eat or drink is my business entirely and doesn’t impact you one bit. I subscribe to a health insurance program for which I pay monthly and which is there to take care of any future medical needs I may have. You’re not paying my premiums.

Arne Feb 23, 2019 - 4:11 pm

These Socialist Nanny State legislators need to pack their bags and go home! This, on top of the other Socialist bills to essentially double the cost of any beverage containing sugar are getting totally out of hand!!

Comments are closed.