As a state representative from Bedford, I have seen how quickly well-intentioned government policies turn into costly mandates for our local and regional businesses. New Hampshire’s strength has always been its respect for individual choice and a moderate regulatory environment. Efforts now underway to restrict what families may purchase with SNAP benefits abandon those principles and instead impose what is, in substance, a new tax on small businesses—one that consumers will inevitably pay.
Senate Bill SB 615 (2026) would ban SNAP purchases of certain sugary foods and beverages, and while framed as a public health measure (which is problematic in and of itself), the reality is far different. To enforce SB 615 restrictions, the state would need to develop and mandate a complex regulatory definition of “acceptable” foods and require retailers to enforce those mandates at the point of sale. That enforcement does not come free. Independent grocers would be forced to purchase new software and point-of-sale systems, retrain staff, and absorb onerous ongoing compliance costs.
Such costs are not theoretical. Grocery stores operate on razor-thin margins. When the state imposes new mandates, store owners have only one option: pass those costs along to customers. That would make this policy a de facto hidden tax. The tax would be levied by the legislature on small businesses, collected from consumers, and felt most acutely by consumers who can least afford higher prices. No tax is a good tax, but SB 615 is an acutely regressive levy, falsely masquerading as health policy. This centrally planned, government directive embraces the illusory notion that restricting SNAP-purchased sugary foods and drinks will somehow deter consumers from using cash or from traveling a few hundred yards over state lines to make grocery purchases at our less restrictive neighbors to the north, south, and west. No restrictions on nitrate-infused, processed meats or frozen battered, deep-fried mozzarella sticks. I can see the signs on the State House steps: Stop-the-Pop. Tell a Cop.
The economic blow would fall hardest on our local businesses. Large national chains can absorb outsized compliance costs, but local grocers cannot. This legislation, if passed, would indeed tilt the playing field against independent businesses by encouraging Granite State shoppers to take their dollars across state lines, exporting commerce and revenue out of New Hampshire.
The bill also turns store clerks into enforcers of an ever-changing food code, forcing them to deny purchases based on arbitrary sugar thresholds. Orange pop bad; lemon fizz good. Meanwhile, no credible evidence exists that micromanaging SNAP purchases at the checkout counter will produce a scintilla of health benefit.
If policymakers believe SNAP is fundamentally broken, they should fight to cut the program directly. What we should not do is selectively tax certain food choices by imposing costly mandates on small businesses while dressing up a doomed government policy as improved public health.
New Hampshire succeeds because we trust people, not bureaucracies. Expanding regulatory control, raising prices through backdoor taxation, and punishing local businesses is not the path to a healthier or freer state.
