![]() ![]() ![]() Members visited 30 stores, and 15 of them had the signs. According to Calpotura, there are an estimated 450 soda retailers in Oakland. “We wanted to make sure there was data to show this was a concerted effort,” said Francis Calpotura, the founder of the Sugar Freedom Project. Members of the project immediately started investigating. Frustrated by what she calls “devious” language, Grossman called the leaders of the Sugar Freedom Project, a group that’s been going door to door to educate people about the tax and how the revenue from it is being used for community projects, like new drinking fountains in Oakland public schools. The mystery surrounding the sign started in 2017 when Grossman spotted the orange display at several stores: a chain store near Lake Merritt and a couple of corner stores in East Oakland. “If you have a new cost, you have to make up that cost,” Joe Arellano, the spokesperson for the campaign against the tax, told Oakland North in 2016. Distributors would pass the cost of the tax to the retailer, who would eventually pass it on the consumer, they predicted. ![]() “The part that was misleading was when they said ‘as intended by law being directly passed through to the shoppers’-that’s not true,” she continued.Īccording to the language of the ordinance, the tax, approved by voters in 2016, charges one cent per ounce “on the privilege of Distributing Sugar-Sweetened Beverage products in the City.” In other words, the company that brings soda into Oakland-the distributor-pays the tax.īut soda tax opponents had argued in 2016 that eventually, soda buyers would eat-or in this case, drink-the new charge. Whoever it was, Nori Grossman, a nutritionist with the Alameda County Public Health Department, is sure of one thing: “It’s misleading,” she said. Maybe it was city officials? Maybe it was a soda lobbying group? Perhaps it was one of the soda delivery guys? No company or political group’s logo is listed on the sign, and owners of several stores displaying the signs say they didn’t put them up. Since the Sugar-Sweetened Beverage Tax took effect July 1, 2017, raising the price of sodas sold in Oakland, the sign has appeared in supermarkets and convenience stores-both independent and chains-across the city. But who put the sign there and what they’re hoping to accomplish-well, that’s something of a corner store mystery. The message on the sign is clear: Your soda may be more expensive because of a new tax. Fixed in front of rows of red, green and yellow sodas it reads: “NEW, Sugar-Sweetened Beverage Tax … is now in effect and, as intended by law, is being directly passed through to the shoppers.” A wrinkled orange sign sticks to the glass door of a supermarket fridge in East Oakland. ![]()
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