My friend and I went to Henry’s Convenience Store (first floor Unicentre) to purchase a drink before class the other day. When we saw that all the fridges at the store run by the Carleton University Students’ Association (CUSA) were stocked with Coca-Cola products, I figured that they must have been sold out of water bottles. But when my friend asked the cashier if they had any water bottles, she responded, “CUSA believes that water should be free.” My friend and I were shocked, especially since the closest thing to a healthy drink at the store is Vitamin Water.
What would the options be for a person trying not to drink any unhealthy beverages if they were at Henry’s? You need change to purchase a water bottle from the vending machine outside the store, Tim Horton’s has painfully long lines and you’d have to go on Mission Impossible: 5 to find a water fountain. (Seriously, CUSA should at least make an app if they want to encourage people to use water fountains at Carleton.) Finding a water fountain wouldn’t even help a person looking to have a water bottle for class.
The students’ association is not only limiting their business by excluding water bottle profits, they are also inadvertently encouraging students to purchase pop bottles and thus make an unhealthy choice.
Since Henry’s only sells pop bottles, if you were trying to quench your thirst and didn’t have any change or the time to wait in line, you would be coerced into purchasing a 591 ml pop bottle, which contains 260 calories and 71 grams of sugar.
If you are like myself and want to support CUSA-run businesses, then you would take any opportunity to help their business by purchasing goods and services from them. However, the decision to not sell water bottles is concerning and based on an unrealistic policy.
I understand the environmental concern, but if there aren’t any water bottles, most people will likely select another beverage. This means there will be the same concerns for the environment, but their ability to make a healthy choice would be violated. With obesity and other health concerns on the rise, you would think that intentionally removing the healthiest purchase at a student-run business would be considered counterproductive.
It wouldn’t be hard for CUSA to rectify the situation. It could use one shelf of the hundreds available in Henry’s to stock water bottles, create an app to help people locate the water fountains on campus that it is proposing students use, or even add more water fountains and signs that will at least point students in the right direction.
Calling Henry’s a “convenience store” is ironic. It’s very inconvenient to have to go elsewhere to get something as simple as water at Carleton.
— Devin Harm,
third-year law
