For years, the beverage industry managed to defeat soda tax campaigns across the country. In at least 31 American cities, proposals aimed at sugary drinks were shut down before they could take hold. California cities were not spared: Richmond and El Monte tried in 2012 and lost, overwhelmed by industry spending and familiar warnings about government overreach.
Berkeley broke that pattern. In a 75% landslide, voters approved Measure D, creating the nation’s first tax on distributors of sugar-sweetened beverages. What began as a narrow public finance experiment has become something larger: a long-running example of how local governments can turn a tax into a public health engine. The central question is no longer whether the policy can survive. It is what a city can build once the money starts flowing.
From tax collection to neighborhood investment
Since 2015, the Healthy Berkeley program has put more than $11.9 million back into communities that have historically been targeted by the beverage industry, especially Black, Latino, immigrant and lower-income neighborhoods. Nearly $5.7 million of that total has supported the Berkeley Unified School District’s cooking and gardening initiative, which now reaches more than 40,000 students and parents through 18 school gardens. Instead of disappearing into a general budget, the revenue has been transformed into something residents can see and use every day.
The rest of the funding has helped create a broader network of health support that follows people through different stages of life. At the YMCA of the East Bay, toddlers sing about drinks that help them grow. In school gardens, elementary and middle school students prepare vegetables they helped cultivate themselves. Teenagers become water ambassadors with the Ecology Center and lead urban agriculture work through Berkeley Youth Alternatives. The idea is simple but powerful: healthy choices become easier when they are taught, practiced and reinforced in familiar places.
Health access that reaches beyond the classroom
Adults have also benefited from the program’s reach. Certain clinics provide primary care, dental services and health information in residents’ own languages, helping remove barriers that often keep people from seeking care. Between 2018 and 2026, Healthy Berkeley generated 20,000 primary care referrals and 9,000 dental referrals for people who are frequently underserved by the health system. In other words, the tax did not simply discourage soda consumption; it helped build a local support structure that links prevention, education and medical access.
Evidence of change in behavior and health
Berkeley’s experience has also changed how residents think about their own well-being. In a survey of 840 people reached by programs funded through Healthy Berkeley, 80% said their attitudes, interest or intentions shifted toward healthier behavior. That matters because public health progress is not only about price signals. It is also about trust, awareness and the sense that a community is no longer passive while outside companies shape its habits. Once residents understood how aggressively sugary drink companies had been targeting them, many stopped accepting that influence as inevitable.
The numbers suggest that these efforts are more than symbolic. A 2026 study compared 44,000 children living in California cities with soda taxes to 345,000 children in 40 matched cities without them. The researchers found significantly lower body mass index percentiles among children in tax cities, with the strongest effects among those under 12. The study’s authors went so far as to recommend similar excise taxes as a tool for preventing chronic disease. That finding gives Berkeley’s experience a wider significance: the city is not just funding programs, it is helping test a public health strategy.
Industry pushback and a wider political fight
The beverage industry recognized that threat early. In 2018, the American Beverage Association spent $7 million on a ballot initiative in Sacramento that would have required a two-thirds supermajority for nearly any new local tax. The industry offered to pull the measure only if lawmakers agreed to ban local soda taxes for 12 years. The Legislature accepted the deal, and the Sacramento Bee described it as a shakedown. State Sen. Scott Wiener called it “a nuclear weapon” aimed at state and local governments. Berkeley’s tax was protected by grandfathering, but the episode showed how seriously the industry viewed the policy.
Later legal and political developments reinforced Berkeley’s position. In 2026, the California Third District Court of Appeal struck down the law’s penalty provisions in a case led by Cultiva La Salud and Santa Cruz City councilmember Martine Watkins. Then, in 2026, Berkeley voters made their soda tax permanent with 80% support. In the same election, Santa Cruz became the first California city to approve a new soda tax since the preemption agreement. The political barrier had not disappeared entirely, but it had clearly weakened.
Why other cities are watching
Berkeley’s story matters because it shows that a soda tax can be more than a revenue stream or a symbolic protest. It can support school programming, expand preventive care, strengthen trust in institutions and help local leaders emerge from the neighborhoods most affected by poor health outcomes. The city has demonstrated that diabetes rates can shift, youth BMI levels can improve and residents can organize around a shared interest in well-being rather than accept industry marketing as the default background noise of daily life.
That is why the lesson extends beyond Berkeley. Other California cities considering similar policies are not just looking at a tax rate; they are looking at a model for reinvestment. Berkeley has shown that when local governments commit the revenue to communities, the result can be durable and visible. The bottle may have been opened in one city, but the idea is now much harder to put back inside it.
