I remember my vacation in the states (in the South). I got served a absolutely massive glass of coca-cola with my dinner. When I had finally managed to finish it a waiter came and refilled the bloody thing when I wasn't paying attention. How can you enjoy your meal with that much to drink?
Is it just me who's thinking that individuals in modern societies are not capable anymore of making meaningful decisions, including how much to drink? We're sacrificing freedom here because we became incapable. That scares me.
If I'm Coca-Cola or Pepsi or run a large restaurant chain in the US, I'm pushing this ban everywhere.<p>Restaurants price soda to include the cost of people who get the free refills and the margins are high because of it.<p>If the government suddenly banned free refills, restaurants won't lower prices because it will hurt top-line revenue and buying decisions aren't made on the price of soda with your meal. Consumption goes down but prices are stable means profits are higher, so Coke and Pepsi can raise their prices to restaurants, say both sides capture half that new margin.<p>Soda makers win, restaurants win, consumers win because consuming less sugar assuming they don't pay for a refill, taxpayers win by lower burden on healthcare. Sounds great.
When I was living in France and Switzerland free refills were basically unheard of. About the only place that I ever found that had free refills was IKEA.
The irony of the situation is that they can't simply ration or ban these products because we live in the era of consumerism and the market would rather slowly kill you and make money off of you than ban something that is a health concern. So this is a double standard to keep French pencil pushers employed and French people thinking that their government is doing something positive.
I guess this is more of a principle kind of thing since free refills are almost unheard of in Europe, even in American fast food franchises.<p>In general soft drinks are incredibly overpriced in Europe since people drink so little of them.
There are no bad foods, only bad diets. Why pick on sugary drinks, but leave ice cream shops alone. Why not put a hazard tax on buffet restaurants. Imagine the government decides they don't like the way you live your life, so they make laws to screw you and people like you. Laws are the worst way to attempt to improve human dietary behavior.<p>You could advertise fitness, create tastier low calorie beverages, even advertise drinking a full glass of water before eating. Positive fitness outcomes can be found using non punitive means.
It seems like a Soda tax would be a less heavy handed approach. If you make the price high enough restaurants will stop offering refills all on their own.
Relevant Parks and Rec. <a href="http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2oq3zt" rel="nofollow">http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2oq3zt</a><p>In the show, citizens are pissed because Leslie, the politician lady, decides to tax oversized sodas.<p>Maybe people don't deserve the "liberty" to drink gallons of sugar. And maybe companies don't deserve to offer it to people.
I'd rather live in a country that provides comprehensive free health care and limits soda consumption, than one that allows me the "freedom" to consume as much sugar as possible and makes me pay for the consequences.<p>I must be a radical hippie leftist: I think we should tax the sh-t out of refined sugar and subsidize organic vegetable farms.