by Mitch Lehman
San Marino High School 1994 graduate and former ASB President Taylor Peck has made it onto the billboards atop one of the most stylish cities in the world – San Francisco, California.
Is it because he will be joining classmates back in town next week for their 20th reunion?
No, but this is as good a time as any to mention that event, which culminates on Saturday, October 18 at 8:00 p.m. with a dinner at Bodega Wine Bar in Paseo Colorado.
Peck – who owns two custom soda shops with wholesale and retail components in The City – is spearheading the fight against Proposition E, otherwise known as the Sugary Drink Tax. This measure, which would impose a $0.02 per ounce tax on sugary beverages in San Francisco that would amount to a 24 cent tax on every can of soda sold.
“High cigarette taxes have resulted in smuggling, tax evasion, and violence, and jacking up soda taxes will likewise have adverse consequences that legislators cannot anticipate,” noted the Libertarian Party’s ballot argument against the measure. “Your body belongs to you, not to the State.”
A 2/3rds majority vote is required for approval. Similar measures were defeated in 2012 in El Monte as well as Richmond.
Peck has become the poster boy for the campaign against E, literally, and his likeness has popped up everywhere from newspaper ads to on-camera interviews that have been broadcast throughout Northern California. One of the dozens of billboards which trumpets his message is located just outside the right field line at AT&T Park, home to the San Francisco Giants.
The former San Marino resident owns two stores, each called The Fizzary, one on Mission Street and another in the iconic Haight-Asbury District. He sells hundreds nay thousands of brands of custom, craft sodas including birch and root beers, sasparillas, ginger ales and ginger beers, colas, cream sodas and anything else that squirts back out your nose. A quarter a can would exact a heavy toll, hence Peck’s passionate campaign to flatten the proposed tax. A similar measure is also on the November ballot in Berkeley.
Peck even wrote an Op-Ed piece foe the venerable San Francisco Chronicle, who published his submission.
‘Although it is well intentioned, this poorly designed tax will increase the cost of every San Franciscan’s grocery bill, whether or not they drink sodas,” Peck opined. “The average consumer who drinks a sports drink, sweetened tea or coffee, cranberry juice, and even some coconut waters, each day would get socked with additional taxes each year. Our city is known for innovation and I am proud to have my business here and be part of the community. But, this tax is an overly simple solution to a very complex problem. That’s why I’m voting No on Prop. E.”
We’ll check back after the election. And the reunion…
