There were always two sides to Mayor Mike Bloomberg.
One was the tough-on-crime, fiscally responsible, pro-school-reform leader who did great things for this city. The other was the nanny who used his bureaucracies to pester New Yorkers about what they ate, drank or smoked.
Guess which of these legacies Bill de Blasio embraced when he became mayor?
We see that in light of this week’s ruling by New York’s Court of Appeals, which held that the city’s Board of Health way overstepped its authority when it tried to ban the sale of sodas in containers larger than 16 ounces.
It’s a slap at Bloomberg, yes. But de Blasio was invested here as well.
It was our new mayor, after all, who chose to continue the city’s appeal of a lower-court ruling against the soda-ban. Indeed, a de Blasio administration statement said the city was “extremely disappointed” it was prevented “from implementing a sugary drink portion cap policy.”
Meanwhile, de Blasio has dropped the city’s appeal of Judge Shira Scheindlin’s outrageous decision on stop-and-frisk.
In other words, while Mayor Bill is more than willing to use the courts to continue Bloomberg’s war on Big Gulps, he’s not willing to do the same for the Bloomberg crime policies that helped transform New York into America’s safest big city.
Which tells us New Yorkers may well be stuck with the worst of both worlds: Nanny Bloomberg’s regulations — and Progressive Bill’s crime policies.