Minn. town's license, fee for businesses to sell soft drinks fizzles out

City Administrator Peyton Mastera said council members unanimously voted Dec. 20 to scrap a rule on the books since 1963 that originally addressed establishments like convenience stores and parlors where fountain soda was sold.

Over the decades, he said the ordinance came to require that anyone selling soft drinks get an annual license, whether the beverages came out of a fountain, can or bottle.

But it also became an ambiguous and subjective ordinance, and Mastera said there were plenty of "hazy lines" about the rule, including if it should apply to an institution or business with a soda machine in a breakroom.

He said it also was crafted decades ago to address soda parlors and fountains, a business model that isn't around anymore.

"It wasn't clearly defined who should've been getting the licenses at this time," he said. "That all kind of goes into why it would've been repealed."

Another issue, he said, is that businesses selling soft drinks would likely fall under regulation from other health ordinances already on the books.

Mastera said 16 businesses got soft drink licenses last year for $50 a piece, adding up to $800 of revenue for the city, a suburb of Fargo-Moorhead.

Doing away with the requirement won't add up to big savings for stores and establishments, but he said city leaders saw it as a "pro-business gesture" while also modernizing the rules.

"We're always looking to improve our ordinances to eliminate ambiguous language," Mastera said. "You see that with any community having this old, outdated language, and this one just fell right in line."