Oakland Clashes Over Soda Tax, With Some Calling It A 'Grocery Tax'
OAKLAND (CBS SF) -- Some small business owners in Oakland are hoping a proposed soda tax goes flat. Some business owners are even referring to it as a grocery tax.
But it's not a grocery tax, it's a tax on sugar-sweetened beverages.
Supporters say the tax would only affect Big Soda companies like Coca Cola and Pespi, but opponents argue it would force small businesses to raise grocery prices.
Abdul Taleb, an Oakland grocery store owner said, "At the end of the day, consumers are the ones that are going to pay."
Taleb says the penny-per-ounce tax would push a 64 oz. bottle of soda from $2 to $2.64.
He says he simply can't increase the price that much, so he would spread out the tax to other items he sells, like produce.
Taleb says, "We can't put it on one single item or items that they're proposing. We have to distribute everything. Because at the end of the day, we are a business competing for customers, you know, in our neighborhood."
Oakland City Council member Rebecca Kaplan co-sponsored the measure and said, "Just like the cigarette tax applies to cigarettes, why would a store owner then turn around and subsidize cigarettes out of their own pocket. They don't do that. Cigarette prices just go up."
But Taleb said, "From a business point of view, the smartest decision for us is to spread it on all items, not just soda."
People in San Francisco and Oakland will vote on the tax in November.
In Oakland alone, the American Beverage Association has already spent $600,000 to fight the measure, producing ads in Spanish and Chinese, targeting minority voters.
Many of the people in the ads are small business owners.
Kaplan said "They are lying to people by saying it's a tax on groceries. If the soda industry really thought it was a tax on bread and vegetables, they wouldn't spend any money against it."
