Ralph Nader

“ Giving a company a monopoly over certain products sold to the City means preventing better products from superior competitors coming along to demonstrate what free enterprise means. What will happen if your designated monopolist—say Snapple—or its parent conglomerate Cadbury-Schweppes (a British company) gets into trouble with the law—a criminal conviction, an Enron type scandal, a covered-up product defect? Does the secret agreement with Snapple have an "out" clause? Who pays to remove the stigmatized company logos and signs all over the Big Apple? ”

“ What happens when people and students take issue, as they surely will, with Snapple's president's blanket statement that "New York City loves Snapple," and start rebelling against this fiat by City Hall, start wearing t-Shirts in school saying awful things about Snapple, boycotting the products, examining the contents of the drinks and showing that commercialism and public government do not mix. ”

“ Old-timers years ago would have wondered what the Mayor means by marketing New York City. Cities were viewed more benignly when they were more livable, more employable at good wages, more replete with public institutions like good libraries, good public transit, good schools, good hospitals and clinics and good recreational facilities in the neighborhoods. New York City is crumbling on these measurements. ”