Public Comment

Response to Coverage of Measure D Westbrae Biergarten Event

Beth Gerstein, Berkeley Healthy Child Coalition Events Committee
Tuesday September 16, 2014 - 01:52:00 PM

Below is a response to the coverage on the upcoming Soda Series event mentioned in this post:

Thanks for your coverage of our upcoming Westbrae Biergarten event -- every little bit helps and we hope you can join us for some additional coverage that night. We will be showing several very powerful Youthspeaks videos related to the topic which will be sure to stimulate discussion. With respect to your statement regarding the ironic nature of the location I would like to raise several different points: 

First, as you might have noticed, Measure D was put on the ballot by a broad coalition of Berkeley citizens called the Healthy Child Coalition. The impetus for this ballot initiative was the rising diabetes rates among our children and youth. The target population that we would like the revenues to go towards are Berkeley's youngest residents, ages 0 - 18. 

No one would really argue that beer is responsible for their rising diabetes rates. The issue really is liquid sugar (see the KQED blog post on our first event of the series

Alcohol, as you most likely know, is already heavily taxed. And thanks to various public health campaigns, educational programs in schools, and even warning labels the potential detrimental effects of alcohol are well known. We would like the same to be true with sugar sweetened beverages, which are not only readily available and cheaper to buy than bottled water but are also excessively marketed to children and youth. 

You will note that Senator Monning tried to pass a bill getting warning labels added onto sugar sweetened beverage containers. Unfortunately it fell just a few votes short of passing the state's Assembly Health Committee. We see Measure D as one of many needed steps in the campaign to reverse the rising diabetes trend. 

Lastly, and perhaps most significantly, Lynn Ferreira, owner of the Westbrae Biergarten has been living in Berkeley and supporting our schools since 1999. In fact, for many years now she has donated $1.00 per every stein sold of Trumer Pilsner to the district’s cooking and gardening program, which is matched by the distributor (Horizon) at $.33 per stein. She is deeply concerned about children and children's health and it is for that reason that we are partnering with her at this venue to support the ballot measure. All Berkeley businesses should be so supportive of the communities in which they reside! 

Frankly, I think it is great that the Berkeley Federation of Teachers is co-sponsoring this event. In fact, they are co-sponsoring the entire series, if you’ll notice from our posters. Teachers work so hard. They more than almost anyone else deserve some well earned time to relax with good food, good drink, and good neighbors with good causes in mind after their extremely long work weeks. You certainly aren't begrudging teachers their chance to have some fun, are you? 

Thanks again for your coverage. Hope to see you at our events!