ASSEMBLY OKS SODA BAN FOR ELEMENTARY, MIDDLE SCHOOLS

STEVE LAWRENCE, Associated Press Writer
Thursday, August 21, 2003

(08-21) 18:01 PDT SACRAMENTO (AP) - Worrying about the health of California children, the state Assembly voted Thursday to ban the sale of sodas to students at elementary schools and restrict sales of the drinks at junior highs.

If passed by the Senate and signed by Gov. Gray Davis, the bill would make California the first state to adopt a soda ban, said Harold Goldstein, executive director of the California Center for Public Health Advocacy, a nonprofit organization that supports the bill. "It's a watershed event."

The Assembly approved a bill by Sen. Deborah Ortiz, D-Sacramento, that would allow elementary schools to serve students only milk, water and juice drinks that are at least half fruit and have no added sweeteners. Junior highs and middle schools could offer those beverages and electrolyte-replacing sports drinks during school hours.

"Many of our young people just have too much sugar per day," said Assemblywoman Wilma Chan, D-Alameda, adding that instances of obesity and diabetes are on the rise among California youth. "There is no reason the schools should be serving sodas to children."

Sodas could be sold more than a half hour before school and a half hour after school and at dances and other after-school events at junior high and middle schools, an exception designed to aid school fund-raising drives. The bill wouldn't stop students from bringing sodas to school from home.

Assemblyman Tony Strickland, R-Moorpark, called the bill "just another nanny government piece of legislation" and said lawmakers shouldn't try to impose their judgments on parents and school boards.

"If you think this is such a bad product I encourage you not to bring sodas on the floor and drink them on the floor, because once again you're not willing to live with the laws you create," he told his colleagues.

According to Goldstein's organization, more than 26 percent of California children are overweight. The American Academy of Pediatrics cites poor diet, including consumption of sugary carbonated beverages, as a main reason for the increasing number of obese children.

Current California law includes a ban on sodas at elementary and middle schools that's scheduled to take effect Jan. 1. But that prohibition won't kick in unless the schools get additional state funding for nutrition programs, and that money hasn't been appropriated.

Ortiz's legislation isn't contingent on the additional funding and would take effect next July 1.

Her bill, when it was approved by the state Senate in May, also included restrictions on sodas at high schools, starting in 2005, but that language was dropped in the Assembly Health Committee.

"I think there was split of opinion on whether high school should be covered," said Assemblyman Dario Frommer, the Los Angeles Democrat who chairs the Health Committee. "Some members feel if you're old enough to go to war and vote you're old enough to have a Pepsi on campus."

Thursday's 41-32 vote returned the bill to the Senate for a vote on Assembly amendments.

On the Net: Read the bill, SB677, at www.senate.ca.gov

© 2003 Associated Press

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