THUNDER BAY -- A food cart owner challenged the bottled water sale ban at city events in a deputation before city council on Monday, arguing the public has a thirst for the product that nothing else can quench.
Tek's Tubesteak proprietor Tony Marino said when he told patrons he couldn't sell them water, some were turned off of making any purchase at all.
"There are people who only want to buy bottled water," he said.
"I have a restaurant in town here as well and people don't want tap water. They want bottled water. It's about choice for the consumer."
Council voted unanimously to ban the sale of bottled water at city events in 2015, creating a policy that took effect last summer. Having lived through a summer under the ban, Marino assured council whatever environmental goodwill led to its passage only pushed consumers to buy less healthy drinks in plastic bottles.
"Plastic bottles are still being sold,whether it's pop, juice, whatever. That's not saving anything on saving plastic bottles because you sell just as many plastic bottles as anything else," he said.
"Same thing with the sugar content. I was thinking it was going to be for kids to move away from pop and juice and drink water but that's not it either because juice has more sugar than pop -- not more but exactly the same."
The city set up free water dispensers at city-supported events in lieu of bottled water. Marino said the lineups at those stations were sometimes long. He estimated the city gave away over $20,000 in plastic thermoses.
"They had to shut down the water container because they ran out of thermos containers. So nobody was bringing their own cups that I see."
Council tasked administration with writing a memo on the issue.
