Hightower Lowdown

What is the price of acity’s soul? The top bid sofar is $166 million. That’s thesum one company has paidto get corporate-brandingrights to New York City. Inaccepting the cold cash,Mayor Mike Bloomberg hascallously changed themoniker of this great cityfrom the Big Apple to the BigSnapple—having made theBritish-owned beverage conglomerate’sproduct the officialdrink of New York.Snapple gets the exclusiveright to place vendingmachines in all city properties,starting with New York’s1,200 public schools. Theclaim is that Snapple’s fruitblends, Yoo-Hoo drinks,canned water, and iced teaare better for kids than, say,Coca-Cola, which has beenbanned from the schools fornutritional reasons.But hold your empty caloriesright there, say nutritionists.The Center for Sciencein the Public Interest reportsthat, when it comes to caloriesand sugar, Snapple fruitdrinks are “pretty much thesame as a 12-ounce Coke.”And as for Snapple’s cansof water, one nutrition leaderwonders why children arebeing charged to get a simpledrink of H20: “Water is aright,” she says, adding that“New York City is supposedto have the best [tap] water,and we’re asking children topay $1 for [Snapple water].”Let’s put the “public” backin public schools, and getthe corporate profiteers out.