Would Phila drink 'container tax' hurt local stores, help corporate chains?

City Council is expected to vote, as soon as early June, on Mayor Jim Kenney's across-the-board, 3-cents-an-ounce sweet-drinks tax, and a rival, smaller tax on soda bottles and cans -- the "container tax."

The container tax would exempt soda-fountain drinks. Which means hundreds of corner stores and bodegas would face higher tax costs for sweet drinks -- while big soda vendors like Philadelphia-based Aramark, which supplies major sports stadiums, and store chains like McDonald's, Wawa, 7-11, which offer container-tax-exempt soda fountains and cups, become relatively cheaper places to get your sweet-drinks fix.

Does that mean the "container tax" would help big corporate chains and hurt neighborhood store owners? Not necessarily, says Karen Glanz, a Penn professor who has studied urban grocery buyers.

While "we have seen few (to) no soda fountains in independent corner stores and bodegas in Philadelphia, that doesn't necessarily mean that taxing soda in cans and bottles will drive customers to shop at Wawa, 7-11, or other chains stores and fast-food restaurants that sell fountain sodas," Glanz told me.

"We really don't know. And it doesn't seem likely, in my opinion.

Why wouldn't a container tax crush small stores? Because "small/independent stores attract convenience customers," not bargain shoppers, Glanz concludes.

"There are some food items that are really cheap at corner stores and attract kids in particular due to low prices - those are mainly candy and chips. A lot of corner stores have huge displays of super-cheap candy and very cheap name-brand and off-brand chips - which attracts kids walking by on the way to and from school."

But Glanz and colleagues "also collected data on the price of beverages in 251 corner stores in Philadelphia" in 2011. -- They found that, unlike with candy and chips, "bottles and cans of soda don't cost less in corner stores than in large grocery stores" -- yet people still buy them there.

Why? Because it's not just about price -- it's about convenience. The same families whose kids grab a single-serving or one-meal soda bottle at the corner market, also go to full-service grocery stores, to buy meat and other more-expensive items. They might grumble, but keep buying, if corner-store soda prices rise a bit.