Judge halts mayor's soda ban, calls it 'arbitrary and capricious'

• By DAVID SEIFMAN and JULIA MARSH

A state judge today put a cork in City Hall's plans to ban Big Apple restaurants and other venues from selling large sugary drinks -- a bubble-bursting defeat for Mayor Bloomberg, who has made public health a cornerstone of his tenure.

Before the stunning ruling by New York Supreme Court Judge Milton Tingling, restaurants, movie theaters, sports venues, convenience stores and other places regulated by the city's health department would have been prohibited -- starting tomorrow -- from selling sugary drinks of more than 16 ounces.

Tingling permanently stopped the city from enforcing the ban.

“[The city] is enjoined and permanently restrained from implementing or enforcing the new regulations," Judge Tingling ruled.

Bloomberg vowed to appeal. The mayor grew testy when asked if he had wisely spent so much political capital on the soda ban.

“I got to defend my children and you and everybody else and do what’s right to save lives,” he angrily said. “Obesity kills. There’s just no question about it.”

The mayor said 70,000 Americans and 5,000 New Yorkers will die from obesity-related illnesses this year, making the ban on large sugary drinks a key move.

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