Pop ban too hard to enforce, mayors say

MONTREAL — While Montreal’s city council has passed a motion looking to ban sugary drinks in municipal buildings, not all borough bosses believe it’s a workable measure.

Some veteran councillors who voted against it this month won’t be drafting those types of rules for their own districts, saying they go beyond their competency as municipal politicians and would prove difficult to enforce.

“I’m for prevention, I’m for an excise tax where it would help fund the health system like tobacco,” said Luis Miranda, mayor of the eastern Montreal borough of Anjou.

“But to start patrolling what goes into my arenas, what goes into my parks in the summertime when there’s a baseball tournament, I don’t agree.”

A working group is expected to look at how to phase the ban on sports drinks, energy drinks and flavoured water into the city’s 19 boroughs.

Miranda said such restrictions would create problems for different groups — youth sports teams, for example, which often have sponsorships with drink companies.

Councillors from the borough of LaSalle also voted against the ban, with Mayor Manon Barbe saying she’d rather see education for citizens instead of having decisions imposed on them.

LaSalle introduced a health policy in 2008 that required 30 per cent of menu items in public buildings to reflect healthy choices, but nothing was banned.