In California, Berkely vs. Big Soda

If Berkeley, Calif., was to become the first city in the nation to pass a soda tax, Councilman Laurie Capitelli knew he would need a united front before the lobbyists showed up.

So in 2014 he and the Berkeley Healthy Child Coalition brought together the NAACP, nearly every elected official in town, residents, and even unions to join the movement that they dubbed Berkeley vs. Big Soda.

They argued that sugary drinks were a health hazard, the precursors to obesity and other troubles.

"We had a fantastic tagline and we made it very difficult to be against us," Capitelli said. "It was kind of a David-and-Goliath story. We warned people: They're going to come in a tsunami."

The strategy worked and Berkeley successfully enacted a 1 percent tax on sugary beverages, a levy applied at the distributor level.

As the Kenney administration pursues its own 3-cent-an-ounce soda tax for Philadelphia, Berkeley's experience is illuminating.

In Berkeley, as Capitelli predicted, the American Beverage Association poured more than $1.5 million into an ad campaign to fight the tax, which was put on the ballot in November 2014. Three underground subway stations were plastered with advertising.

"It was such overkill, I was almost embarrassed for them," Capitelli said. "And it played into our hands."

Come election day, 75 percent of residents voted for the tax.

Once Berkeley started imposing the levy in March 2015, some dollar stores took the tax a step further, discontinuing soda sales altogether because the tax didn't fit with their $1 business model, Capitelli said.

Berkeley is no Philadelphia. The Bay Area municipality is an affluent, well-educated small city, considered one of the most liberal - some would say left-wing - places in the nation. But when people write the city off as "Berzerkeley," as Capitelli says they sometimes do, they ignore the national interest in soda taxes.

"I think the tide is turning," Capitelli said. "You would not believe the calls I get from Philadelphia, San Francisco, Boulder, Seattle. I got a call from London the other day."

His advice for Kenney was to prepare.

"Soda is ruthless," he said. "They went to one of our merchants and said, 'We'll give you a 50 percent discount on soda for the next two years if you put an [antitax] sign in the window.' "

It didn't work, Capitelli said.

"The owner was a friend of mine." - Julia Terruso