These are frantic days for the man the Manhattan tabloids call the Soda Jerk. Michael Bloomberg, the mayor of New York, is reviewing his troops, readying the SWAT teams for his campaign to beat back the crime wave sweeping over Gotham.
The mayor begins enforcement of his new rules about how much soda is good for a New Yorker on March 12, vowing to take neither prisoner nor excuse. Hizzoner wants to be remembered as the mayor who stopped the gulping, slurping and burping that threatened to make Gotham unfit for human habitation. Gotham was in fact unfit for habitation not so long ago. Then Rudy Guiliani cleaned up the city, chased the crooks and thugs to wherever they went, probably New Jersey, wiped away most of the graffiti and washed the dirt off the face of the city that never sleeps.
Mike Bloomberg wants to be remembered as the mayor who swiped Mary Poppins’ bloomers and became nanny to the world. The soda smackdown follows earlier campaigns against sins of the palate – New Yorkers were eating too much sugar, salt, fats, cigarettes. Even babies were guilty. The New York Post surveyed the battlefield of today and reports that Hizzoner is after a lot more than an 18-ounce container of Coke, Pepsi and other drinks Hizzoner deems too sweet.
“If you order a pizza,” the Post reports, “you cannot get a large bottle of soda delivered with it. Already, Domino’s locations across the city are doing away with 1- and 2-liter bottles of soda . . . they’ll sell smaller bottles instead, costing you more money and increasing plastic waste.”
Pizza restaurants typically charge $3 for a 2-liter bottle of Coke or Pepsi, the Post says, and after March 12 a customer would have to buy six 12-ounce cans for $7.50. This will put a crimp in a lot of family occasions, but that’s a sacrifice the mayor, a billionaire, is willing to take. ...
READ MORE>>> [2]
