Happy July 4: Santa Cruz gets to keep its soda tax

Let’s start this July 4 week with a bit of good news.  Santa Cruz gets to keep the tax it passed in 2024.

The Santa Cruz Sentinel: City of Santa Cruz wins court ruling on soda tax.

The Sacramento County Superior Court denied a petition challenging Santa Cruz’s sugar-sweetened beverage tax….The tax was approved by Santa Cruz voters as Measure Z in November 2024 and requires distributors of sugar-sweetened beverages to pay the city a tax of two cents per fluid ounce, which supports the city’s General Fund.

In May 2025, the tax was challenged by the American Beverage Association and a group of other grocers and retailers, including the California Chamber of Commerce and the California Grocers Association. The petitioners sought to halt the implementation of the tax, arguing that it violated the state constitution.

The advocacy group, ChangeLab Solutions, says of this ruling,

This decision affirms that state law does not preempt home rule authority of California charter cities to enact sugary drink taxes that support community well-being. It is also a significant blow to corporate beverage industry tactics that seek to strip power away from local communities.

“The ruling in California Grocers Association v. Santa Cruz affirms what we know to be true — that local residents are best positioned to make policy choices about the health and well-being of their own communities,” said Sabrina Adler, vice president of law at ChangeLab Solutions.

ChangeLab explained what the California law was about in 2024.

ChangeLab Solutions and the American Heart Association supported a successful 2020 lawsuit that challenged the deceptively named 2018 Keep Groceries Affordable Act, a California law that was heavily backed by beverage industry operatives and passed using shady political tactics. The Keep Groceries Affordable Act tried to prevent cities from voting on new sugary drink taxes. The penalty provision of that 2018 law was declared unconstitutional by an appeals court in 2023. This court decision paved the way for voters in cities like Santa Cruz to once again exercise their democratic right to vote on sugary drink taxes for their community.

This explains the emailed message I received from Steven Maviglio of Forza Communications:

The following statement can be attributed to me as spokesperson for the American Beverage Association: “The court appears to have ignored the law and the legislature’s intent and instead decided to create its own interpretation of the tax. The Keep Groceries Affordable Act was passed by significant majorities in the legislature and could not be more straightforward in its goal to prevent new local taxes on grocery items. We will not relent in our defense of a law that continues to receive overwhelming support from Californians because it has helped hold down costs on groceries at a time of record high prices.”

I will be following the appeal with great interest.  In the meantime, let’s enjoy the win.  We could use one.