Lewis County residents voted in line with the rest of Washington to ban the taxation of some grocery items, namely soda, based on the most recent election results posted Wednesday night.
More than 1.1 million people statewide have voted to pass the measure compared to about 950,000 ballots cast against it. In Lewis County, about 19,600 of the more than 30,000 ballots counted were in favor of the ban.
Shop’n Kart President Derris McDaniel previously told The Chronicle he supported the initiative because lower-income residents would bear the brunt of the cost.
Initiative 1634 was drafted at least in part to block cities and counties from copying a tax Seattle placed on sugary beverages at the beginning of 2018. Soda manufacturers including Coca-Cola and PepsiCo donated nearly $20 million in support of the measure.
A similar statewide measure in Oregon trailed in early returns there.
