Here's a good reason we tend to avoid signing random petitions: As California Watch reports, Richmond resident, Rosa Lara, has been going door to door identifying herself as an organizer with the Community Coalition Against Beverage Taxes and collecting signatures for a petition against Richmond's upcoming November ballot measure to raise taxes on soda and other sweetened beverages. Unless she's specifically asked, Lara has been neglecting to tell residents that her group is supported by the American Beverage Association, the industry's main trade organization.

When Lara brought 900 signatures to the city council in May, along with a pile of papers representing the 100 businesses who had signed up to oppose the measure, she also failed to inform the council her coalition was backed by the lobby.

The Chronicle, who were also in the dark about Lara's affiliation with the lobby — or they didn't report it, noted in May that the tax will be a penny an ounce on sodas and any beverages with large amounts of sugar. The tax would generate between $2 and $8 million a year and would go toward after school sports programs, health care for children with diabetes, and healthier school meals.

Opponents of the measure are calling it a "tax on poor people." Lara told the council, as reported by California Watch:

We only have one grocery store. What’s going to happen to us? We’re going to have to walk,” Lara told the council. “We don’t have the resources to go out of the city. I’ve lived here my whole life - I haven’t seen changes. We need to make a change for the community. This isn’t the way.

If the measure is approved, Richmond would be the first city in the country to put a special tax on sodas and sugary drinks. Naturally, the beverage industry is taking notice. California Watch quotes Chuck Finnie, a vice president of the San Francisco public relations firm Barnes Mosher Whitehurst Lauter & Partners, which is working for the Community Coalition Against Beverage Taxes: “There are stakeholders nationwide who care about what happens in Richmond.”

[California Watch]

City Attorney Dennis Herrera, along with 13 other state attorneys generals, helped rid store shelves of MillerCoors' "Sparks", an energy drink containing caffeine, taurine, ginseng, and guarana. Oh, and some alcohol too. And today, MillerCoors will no longer make caffeinated "Sparks," "Sparks Plus," "Sparks Light," or any other alcoholic energy drinks ever again.

Invented in San Francisco by local beverage marketing company McKenzie River Corporation, the tacky beverage, it seems, is marketed to the underage set. (Sparks shamelessly uses images of batteries, rocket ships, and powered snowboards in their ads.) What's more, the high-love combo reduced the drinker's sense of intoxication, making you feel less drunk than you actually are. Which is bad.

According to a statement Herrera released today, the "combustible mix" is hurting the children, who are our future.

A recently published study found that college students who mix alcohol and energy drinks were more likely to be hurt, sexually assaulted or drive drunk than those who only drank alcohol. In addition, college students who reported drinking alcohol mixed with energy drinks engage in increased heavy episodic drinking and have twice as many episodes of weekly drunkenness.

MillerCoors will also have to fork over $550,000, which will be divided among the thirteen states and
San Francisco. The agreement will also force MillerCoors to do the following: "Stop manufacturing and marketing all caffeinated alcoholic beverages, including "Sparks" as currently formulated; reformulate its alcoholic energy drinks so that they do not contain caffeine or other stimulants such as guarana; stop using images in its marketing that imply energy or power, like the battery-themed +/- symbols on its can; stop particular marketing themes that appeal to underage youth, eliminating advertisements that feature a bright orange-stained tongue and not renewing its contract with William Ocean; and immediately discontinue the Sparks Web site."

Looks like it's back to Vodka Red Bulls, folks. Alas.

Image: ncsparkitect