SF Mayor Newsom to restaurants: Drop bottled water and turn on the tap

[Kadie]

Newsom to restaurants: Drop bottled water and turn on the tap
Cecilia M. Vega, Chronicle Staff Writer

Thursday, March 20, 2008
(03-20) 19:17 PDT SAN FRANCISCO -- San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, a restaurateur turned politician, called on his former colleagues in the restaurant business Thursday to stop selling bottled water to customers and start serving local tap water instead.

The mayor made international headlines last year when he banned city government from spending tax dollars on bottled water for its employees, saying the containers clog landfills and pollute the environment. But his new request that restaurants make the switch is just that - a request.

"Not every restaurant is going to be able to afford to do this," Newsom said, noting that restaurants make a significant profit on bottled water sales and conceding that even some of the restaurants he once owned still offer the bottled variety to customers.

"They still don't necessarily get it. I'm working on that as well," said Newsom, who was required to sever financial ties to the local restaurants, bars and wine shops he owned when he became mayor in 2004.

In a press conference at the Ferry Building- a hub of gourmet food shops and restaurants - Newsom and representatives of the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, which delivers water to 2.4 million Bay Area customers, announced the new campaign to urge restaurants to serve San Francisco tap water piped in straight from the Sierra.

more...
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/03/20/BA8MVNB69.DTL

[JI7]

1. i always drink tap when i can, and keep a sports bottle full of water

if i am going somewhere.

[davidinalameda]

2. SF has some of the best water in the country

it goes back to the AIDS epidemic of the 80s and 90s

you had so many people infected in SF that the city had to treat the water for so many water-borne creepy crawlies and other nasties that the water is probably as pure, if not purer, than many bottled brands

[jtrockville]

3. That'd be a dangerous proposal in some parts of the USA.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2008/03/09/ST2008030901877.html

[BearSquirrel2]

4. Pretty much all bottled water comes from municipal water ...

Pretty much all bottled water comes from municipal water, there is just some filtration. I doubt your filter will those pharmaceuticals out. Chances are if they tested bottled water, they would find a lot of the same things.

[cynatnite]

5. We have a nice chemical plant right off the river here...

where we get our drinking water from. I don't trust it at all. The smell alone is enough to make a person wonder.