The success story of the Berkeley soda tax deserves more attention

By Xavier Morales, especially for CalMatters

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Before the 2014 election, soda tax campaigns in the at least 31 US cities was defeated by the beverage industry. Richmond and El Monte – cities at opposite ends of the state – tried and lost two years ago, drowned out by industry costs and sleazy “nanny” messages.

Then the voters of Berkeley passed Measure D with a 75% marginmaking it the nation’s first tax on sweetened beverage distributors.

More than a decade later, the question is no longer whether the soda tax can pass or whether it works. The question is what a city can build with the proceeds. Berkeley spent years answering that question, and the answer deserves California’s broader attention.

Since 2015, the Healthy Berkeley program has reinvested more than $11.9 million in soda tax revenue in communities targeted by the beverage industry most: black, Hispanic, immigrant, and lower-income neighborhoods. Approximately $5.7 million has gone to the Berkeley Unified School District’s cooking and gardening program, which now reaches more than 40,000 students and parents in 18 school gardens.

The remainder has built a public health infrastructure that caters to residents at every stage of life.

Toddlers at the East Bay YMCA sing songs about which drinks help them grow. Primary and junior high school students chop vegetables they have grown themselves in the school gardens. High school students train as water ambassadors with the Environmental Center and run urban agriculture programs through Berkeley Youth Alternatives.

Adults of all ages receive primary care, dental care and reliable health information in their own language at designated clinics. Between 2018 and 2022, the Healthy Berkeley program generated 20,000 primary care and 9,000 dental referrals for residents often overlooked by the health care system.

These investments have changed the way Berkeley thinks about its own health. In one survey of 840 people covered by Healthy Berkeley-funded programs, 80% reported a change in their attitudeinterest or intention in healthier behavior. Once Berkeley residents realized that the sugary drink companies were unfairly targeting them, they stopped defending it.

This is not a price effect. It is a community that organizes itself around its own well-being.

The change in behavior shows up in the data. A 2024 study tracked 44,000 children in California cities with soda taxes versus 345,000 children in 40 matched cities without, and found significantly lower body mass index percentiles among children in tax cities—with the strongest effect among children under 12. The researchers specifically recommend such excise taxes as a tool to prevent chronic diseases.

The drinks industry understood from the start that this was a threat they could not afford. In 2018, the American Beverage Manufacturers Association introduced a $7 million ballot initiative in Sacramento that would have required a two-thirds majority for almost any new local tax, and offered to withdraw it only if the Legislature banned local soda taxes for 12 years. The legislature capitulated. The Sacramento Bee called it a shakedown. State Sen. Scott Wiener called it a “nuclear weapon” aimed at state and local governments. Fortunately, Berkeley’s tax was staked.

Accordingly, in 2023, the California Third Circuit Court of Appeals repealed the penal provisions of the Act in a case brought by Cultivate health and Santa Cruz City Councilman Martin Watkins. In 2024, Berkeley voted to make its tax permanent with 80% support. During the same election, Santa Cruz became the first city in California to pass a new soda tax after the preference deal.

The genie is already out of the bottle.

Other cities in California should take notice of what Berkeley has built. The percentage of diabetes can change. Young people’s BMI may fall. Confidence in local institutions can increase. Community leaders can come out of the most affected neighborhoods.

Berkeley has been showing us the possibilities for years.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and is republished under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives license.