Georgina Bloomberg Defends the Right to Make Mistakes

Jessica Rinaldi/Reuters
Jen Doll 517 Views Jun 8, 2012

Just a week ago we were all in a tizzy about New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg's push to ban soda in larger than 16-ounce-sized quantities from being sold at movie theaters, bodegas, restaurants, and street carts. The soda industry did not like this, and neither did a lot of people—though some said it was a good idea and would make people healthier and so on. But a lot of us just want to be able to make whatever mistakes we want to make, and to be as unhealthy as we damn well please. After all, we're all adults here, right?

One of those adults is Mayor Bloomberg's 29-year-old daughter, Georgina. At "a cocktail soiree hosted by Stefano Tonchi for Gucci’s Frida Gianni last night," she told New York magazine in response to a question about her dad's soda ban that "people should be allowed to make their own bad choices." Yes! The people should! Of course, Georgina's choices—were you invited to a cocktail soiree for Gucci last night? Were you featured in the HBO documentary Born Rich, talking about your life as a billionaire heiress? Have you been the subject of a New York Times "What I Wore"?—are generally quite a lot different than the choices of your average soda drinker. (She loves Fresca, by the way, which even in 16-ounce quantities wouldn't be banned because it has no calories.) Nonetheless, we're glad she's standing up for the little guy who loves big soda. 

Georgina did step back on her censure of her old man a little bit, saying, "His intentions are good. And, it’s the kind of thing that the public will thank him for in twenty years." Still it would be better, she said, if he'd lower the cost of healthy food as opposed to banning what's unhealthy. And also, stop telling us what to do, Dad. We've all got to grow up and make our own decisions at some point. You are not the boss of us. Or at least, you are not the boss of Georgina. 

Want to add to this story? Let us know in comments or send an email to the author at jdoll at theatlantic dot com. You can share ideas for stories on the Open Wire.

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