New York, NY –
Opponents of a proposed sugary beverage tax are escalating their fight against Governor Paterson. WNYC's Fred Mogul reports on the brewing ad war and the political fight ahead for the tax.
REPORTER: The American Beverage Association, a powerful trade group, launched both national and local TV ads Tuesday. The local ads feature grocery store owners from the Bronx and Rochester saying the tax would hurt their customers.
TV AD: This is another way to get into our pockets.
REPORTER: The national ads tout the success of a movement to limit the serving of soda in schools, but they cite research paid for by the Beverage Association. A spokesman says in New York the group plans to spend enough on cable TV to match the ad buys of groups supporting the so-called soda tax.
HOST: Earlier this week, a bipartisan group of 11 state senators came out against the tax. That would be enough to kill it unless it's inserted into the budget bill. If that happens, senators would need to reject the whole bill in order to scrap the tax.
Fred Mogul has been covering healthcare and medicine for WNYC since 2002. His beat takes him to hospitals, community clinics, doctors offices, health agencies, public schools and research labs across the metropolitan area. His work has appeared on NPR and in the New York Times, Time magazine and Philadelphia Inquirer, among others.
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