{"id":15812,"date":"2016-11-16T17:41:58","date_gmt":"2016-11-16T22:41:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=15812"},"modified":"2016-11-23T18:24:48","modified_gmt":"2016-11-23T23:24:48","slug":"sugary-drinks-should-be-phased-out-of-vending-machines-activate-aurora","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/sugary-drinks-should-be-phased-out-of-vending-machines-activate-aurora\/","title":{"rendered":"Sugary drinks should be phased out of vending machines: Activate Aurora"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n

Sugary drinks should be removed from all vending machines in municipal facilities, according to Activate Aurora.
\nThe advocacy group, which aims to turn Aurora into \u201cCanada\u2019s most active community\u201d by 2020 says these \u201csugar dispensers\u201d should be removed from places like the Stronach Aurora Recreation Complex (SARC), Aurora Community Centre, and even Town Hall, to get Aurora on the road to that goal.
\n\u201cI call these things \u2018sugar dispensers\u2019 because that is what they are,\u201d said Ron Weese, Chair of Activate Aurora.
\nMr. Weese made his comments at Council last week where he asked local lawmakers to consider a ban.
\nThe move came on the heels of a conference of students, teachers, and other groups in Aurora on November 3 entitled \u201cWater Does Wonders.\u201d
\nHosted at Dinardo\u2019s by Windfall Ecology Centre, the forum brought together over 100 people to talk about the benefits of drinking water while underscoring the importance of water in the up-and-coming generation.
\n\u201cOur messaging has to be that [water] is a good thing provided often and everywhere, messaging that we value hydration with our safe, clean drinking water supply and that we\u2019re interested in using fillable containers so we don\u2019t have the environmental impacts of plastic,\u201d said Mr. Weese. \u201cWe have a number of vending machines all over the SARC and we have them elsewhere. What I am interested in doing is opening up some dialogue here about the discouragement and removal of certain things that are not appropriate for our community from a health perspective.
\n\u201cI am hoping we can remove vending machines that provide environmentally unfriendly food and beverage.\u201d
\nBut, that is just step number one. The more difficult task, he said, was creating an overall policy that \u201cdiscourages unhealthy choices\u201d across Town. To achieve that, Mr. Weese offered four proposals:
\n\u201cI think we should be reviewing the existing contracts we do have and if we can remove some of these vending machines that would be great,\u201d said Mr. Weese, alluding to current vending machine contracts the Town of Aurora already has in place with companies, including Pepsi. \u201cAny vending machine contracts we have that have a term \u2013 because we believe in honest involvement and business with people \u2013 [will be allowed to] expire but not renew the contracts, and then create a policy that suspends further agreements with vendors that provide the \u2018sugar dispensers\u2019 and containers that harm the environment. The bigger, and tougher one is create some policy and the provision of food and beverages in all our facilities that promote healthy consumption.\u201d
\nWhile the logistics will need to be fine-tuned \u2013 and Council referred Mr. Weese\u2019s request to staff for further comment \u2013 the proposal was warmly received by local lawmakers.
\n\u201cI think it is absolutely the right direction to go just to keep our community as healthy as possible,\u201d said Councillor Sandra Humfryes.
\nAdded Councillor Tom Mrakas: \u201cI think it is a great initiative to make these changes and promote healthy eating.\u201d
\nTo underscore his point, Councillor Mrakas cited recent suggestions made at the Town\u2019s Environmental Advisory Committee calling on Aurora implementing a ban on bottled water.
\n\u201cAs a Town I think we need to look at ensuring all of our facilities have water stations so everyone has it readily available,\u201d he concluded. \u201cWe need to make sure all the schools have that before we actually do anything at this level.\u201d
\nFrom the perspective of Councillor John Abel, by going in this direction, Aurora would be following in the footsteps of other communities across the country and around the world that have implemented similar initiatives to promote \u201chealthy living.\u201d
\n\u201cWe grew up with no vending machines anywhere, basically,\u201d said Councillor Abel. \u201cThings have really changed and we can take a lead by not being a part of it.\u201d
\nMayor Geoff Dawe, however said he saw an \u201cinteresting contradiction\u201d in the proposal.
\n\u201cI [rarely drink] pop, so I would have absolutely no problem with vending machines not selling that, but how do you ban that and then justify selling coffee to someone who fills it full of sugar?\u201d he pondered. \u201cTo me, that is a bit of a double standard.\u201d
\nIn response, Mr. Weese said he is \u201cguided by the compass not the car.\u201d
\n\u201cI want the sugary beverages gone,\u201d he said. \u201cWe know what the concentration of sugars should be in order to get proper hydration. We know the problem with too much sugar. I think the other question that has been discussed both at the snack bar\u2026has to do with some policies around healthy eating.
\n\u201cNo one likes that R word \u201cregulation\u201d but look at what regulation has done: it has given us seatbelts, it has given us recycling, put smoking where it belongs, which is outside and somewhere else. You can\u2019t smoke in a car with children\u2026 The regulation is not something we like to do, but it is effective in certain areas.\u201d<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Activists call for healthy alternatives.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":15799,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15812","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-472","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-09-05 09:53:01","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/2016-11-17-02.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15812","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15812"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15812\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15799"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15812"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15812"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15812"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}