The Global Failure To Disclose Carcinogenic Contaminants In Bottled Drinks Sold To Children

Ross E. Getman, Esq. DC and NYS bars (email)

Source: The Buffalo News (Buffalo, NY), April 2, 2001 pB1.

Title: DRINK FIRM CHALLENGES SCHOOL SALES.(LOCAL)

Author: Deidre Williams and Dick Dawson

Electronic Collection: CJ72774042

RN: CJ72774042

Full Text COPYRIGHT 2001 The Buffalo News. All rights reserved. Reproduced

with the permission of the Dialog Corporation by Gale Group.

Byline: DEIDRE WILLIAMS and DICK DAWSON - News Northtowns Bureau

A small beverage company in Syracuse is challenging the legality of pouring

rights agreements in four Erie County school districts.

American Quality Beverages named the Maryvale, Cleveland Hill, Kenmore-Town of

Tonawanda and Lancaster school districts in a petition filed with the state

Department of Education. The Coca-Cola Bottling Group is named as well.

Representatives for the small beverage company say the long-term contracts

school districts have with soft-drink giants are illegal and unconstitutional

for several reasons.

"The contracts were acquired without the process of competitive bidding. The

long-term contracts bind future groups from not serving soft drinks, and the

contracts allow advertising on school property," said AQB attorney Ross E.

Getman.

AQB is a small, Syracuse-based manufacturer of sports drinks, lemonade and

electrolyte-enhanced water, "things nutritionally engineered for

schoolchildren," Getman said.

When the beverage company started selling sports drinks a few years ago, the

key strategy was to enter school districts and offer healthy beverages. It

worked for a while, but the company eventually was chased out of more than one

school district once Coke and Pepsi entered the picture, Getman said.

"We were vending in several school districts and were forced out by these big,

non-exclusive deals offering upfront money," he said.

Getman has filed similar petitions against school districts in the Syracuse

and Albany areas.

"In most places in the country, these types of deals are subject to a lot of

controversy because they lead to more soda drinking by children," he said.

Coca-Cola Co. said earlier this month that it will provide a larger variety of

healthful drinks in machines, urge local bottlers to let schools limit the

sale of soft drinks at lunch, ask bottlers to stop requiring exclusive

"pouring contracts" with schools and put "noncommercial signage" on school

vending machines.

The move is unlikely to have a large effect on sales for the Atlanta-based

soft-drink maker, which said middle and high school sales represent less than

1 percent of its total.

Several soft-drink companies have contracts with school districts in Erie and

Niagara counties that give them exclusive rights to sell their products in

schools. In 1998, Lancaster's $1 million pouring rights contract -- spread out

over 10 years -- with Coke was the first of its kind in the region. Within a

year, Ken-Ton struck a 10-year deal for more than $1 million. And in 2000,

Cleveland Hill and Maryvale also entered into pouring rights deals.

"These agreements are flat out, squarely illegal for a number of different

reasons," Getman said. "So any school district that enters into such an

agreement, we seek to have it nulled and void. They can help us out by getting

it right out of the gate."

But officials from three of the local school districts said that if the

contracts are illegal, then the Syracuse soft-drink company's dispute is with

the state, not them.

School Superintendents Joseph L. Girardi of Lancaster, Bruce E. Inglis of

Cleveland Hill and Gary L. Brader of Maryvale said their districts adopted

"model" contracts prepared by the state Education Department.

And although the pouring rights pacts are long-term, they contain escape

clauses so the decision of one school board to approve them is not binding on

future boards, the superintendents noted.

On the health aspect of the issue, Girardi noted that state Education Law

already bans the sale of carbonated beverages in schools before the end of the

last scheduled meal period. "Given the prohibition, I really don't know what

the problem is," he said.

As for "advertising" on school property, the three superintendents said it is

limited to the vending machines themselves.