Santa Fe Beverage Tax: A Brief History

On May 2nd (with early voting beginning April 12),a special election will be held solely for Santa Fe Mayor Javier Gonzales’ highest-in-the-nation 2 cent-per-ounce beverage tax on drinks with added sugar. Voters across the nation have rejected similar taxes 43 times over the past several years, but it’s been a long and winding road since the issue in Santa Fe has reared its head leaving many to ask how we got here.

October 12, 2016: Santa Fe Mayor Javier Gonzales introduces a resolution calling for the city to “to explore active ways of reducing sugar intake among Santa Fe’s residents and the benefits that would result.”

October 19, 2016: On this blog, the Rio Grande Foundation quickly calls the mayor out for “mission creep” and suggested a crusade against sugar doesn’t belong on his to-do list.

October 21, 2016: Mayor Gonzales denies he is working on a tax, telling T.S. Last of the Albuquerque Journal:  “This doesn’t lay the groundwork for anything but a healthier community.”

October 29, 2016: In a piece published in the Santa Fe New Mexican, RGF Research Director Dowd Muska warns readers: “don’t buy the mayor’s claim.” Taxing soda, after all, has become an idée fixe for the left’s unsleeping army of lifestyle police.

November 10, 2016: Mayor Gonzales proves us right, announces a proposal to impose a highest-in-the-nation (tied with Boulder, Colorado) two-cent-per-ounce beverage tax a long list of beverages.

January 25, 2017: The Rio Grande Foundation issues a report that found Mayor Gonzales misled the public about his intention to impose a beverage tax from the start. He and his staff had already been planning a beverage for weeks when he denied it to the Albuquerque Journal.

March 8, 2017: The Santa Fe City Council votes to hold a special election, at a cost to the city of up to $95,000, to decide on the issue.