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Schools may drop morning soda ban
By JAMES THORNER, Times Staff Writer
LAND O'LAKES -- Pasco County high schoolers wanting a sugar and caffeine fix might not have to wait until afternoon to plonk in a few quarters for a Pepsi. School district administrators propose doing away with a ban, part of its exclusive soft drink deal with Pepsi since 1999, on the sale of carbonated beverages in the morning. The assumption has been that quaffing fattening but vitamin-poor sodas early in the day would spoil students' appetites for lunch. Pepsi installed timers on some of the 350 soda machines in Pasco schools, devices that block the machines from dispensing carbonated drinks until an hour after the last school lunch period. But high school principals complain that students unplug soda machines to disable the timers. Once power is restored, the machines function normally, but the timers need to be reset. The result: More than a few kids tote bottles of cola through the halls at 9 a.m. "You never can get over how ingenuous students can be," School Board member Marge Whaley said Tuesday night as she announced what could be a rewrite of the soda rules. Policing the machines is a hassle for principals with more important things to do, said Chip Wichmanowski, the school district administrator who runs the drink program. The state now allows morning sales of fizzy drinks in schools as long as at least one offering is pure fruit juice, Wichmanowski said. "The kids want to get their Mountain Dews . . . and if they can't get it at the school, they're buying it at the 7-Eleven before they come to school," Wichmanowski said. Despite complaints that soda and studies are an unhealthy mix, the Pepsi program has been a cash machine for Pasco. Pasco schools consumed 54,668 cases of Pepsi products from March 2002 to March 2003, Wichmanowski said. That equals 1.3-million cans or bottles of sodas, sports drinks and iced tea. Based on those numbers, Pepsi handed $410,000 in commissions directly to schools. Another $337,000 went to the school district. The money has paid for student field trips, computers, scholarships and sporting events. "Since we started the contract in March 1999, we're looking at the district netting approximately $3.5-million," Wichmanowski said. "We've been very pleased with the way it's gone." Expanding the hours during which soft drinks can be sold is sure to boost sales, resulting in higher payouts to the schools. That troubles critics such as Clara Lawhead, a county health department employee and past president of the Florida Dietetic Association. Lawhead slammed the Pepsi-for-cash program as "making money off the bones and teeth of children." She fears selling soda in the morning encourages kids to squander lunch money on sugary drinks that contribute to an obesity epidemic. "We're making money up front but it's going to cost us much more in the long run because of health problems these kids will have later in life," Lawhead said. Wichmanowski said that the district would allow morning sales of Pepsi products only in the 26 high schools. Students in those grades are old enough to make their own nutritional choices, he said. The School Board has scheduled a special meeting for May 6 to discuss tweaking the Pepsi contract. Whaley, for one, supports the changes. "I would far rather have a kid sipping on a Mountain Dew and listening than have a kid drooling on his desk asleep," she said. "I don't think our principals have to run around being the Pepsi police."
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