#This city just banned candy from supermarket checkout aisles

Beginning in March 2021, Berkeley, California, will become the first US city to ban the sale of unhealthy food from supermarket checkout areas.

That liberal Bay Area city council unanimously voted Tuesday night that, starting next year, grocery stores larger than 2,500 square feet will be required to sell not the typical selection of junk food but 25 square feet of healthy items within the three-foot radius of the register.

The “healthy checkout” ordinance defines healthy as items containing five or less grams of added sugar and less than 250 milligrams of sodium per serving, according to ABC 7.

“We’re not saying you can’t have these goods. We’re just saying they’re not going to be right at the eye level of your children when they walk into the store and you’re waiting in that long line at check out,” Council Member Kate Harrison said. “We know that people that eat a lot of high-sugar and salty products have worse health outcomes and this particularly besets low-income communities and people of color.”

The decision is not intended as a punishment or a war on treats so much as a discouragement of poor eating habits, Harrison said.

“It’s not a ban, it’s a nudge,” she told CNN. “Placement of unhealthy snacks near a register increases the likelihood that customers will purchase these foods and drinks when willpower is weak at the end of a long shopping trip.”

The initiative is intended to help parents rebrand their children’s concept of a snack.

“The idea of healthy checkout is that it offers parents more opportunities to say yes to their kids, and it also helps us to re-envision what treats are,” said Harrison. “Unhealthy products actually pay for that prime real estate to create brand recognition and addict our families.”

Their decision will impact at least 25 city supermarkets, including Whole Foods, CVS, Walgreens and Safeway.

The city has long been known for utilizing ordinances to push for better social behavior: In 2014, Berkeley became the first American city to pass a soda tax, and last year, in a push to remove gendered language, they stopped using the word “manhole.”