ALBANY, N.Y. — Viewers who enjoy our weekly look back at stories that made the news 10, 20, 30, and even 40 years ago must know there are more nuggets packed into the WGRZ archives than we can possibly show on television every week.
This week’s News 2 You Extra takes us back 10 years, to when state legislators engaged in an amusing, and surprising lengthy debate about yogurt, for which they were lampooned on national television.
In the current legislative session matters involving the migrant crisis and affordable housing took center stage.
Ten years ago, the state was still exploring whether to approve the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes, let alone permitting its recreational use.
However, nearing the end of the 2014 state legislative session, just as now, lawmakers were busy with housekeeping matters, taking up several bills they hoped to vote on before the session expired.
One of them, to name yogurt as the official state snack, was carried by then republican state senator Michael Ranzenhofer who represented the 61st State Senate District, which at the time included Amherst, Clarence, and Newstead in Erie County, all of Genesee County, and a few towns in Monroe County as well as part of the city of Rochester.
Ranzenhofer had received a letter from a group of grade school students in the Byron Bergen Central School District asking him to sponsor a bill which would designate yogurt as the official snack of New York State, reflecting on the importance of the dairy industry and the growing production of yogurt in that part of the state.
What would seemingly be a benign matter of passage turned into a debate about yogurt and other snack foods which lasted even longer than the one lawmakers had engaged in before passing the SAFE Act, a controversial slew of gun control measures.
Jon Stewart of the Daily Show even poked fun at the state legislature which ended up passing the measure designating yogurt as the state snack, which was later signed by Governor Andrew Cuomo.
Yogurt is just one of many officially recognized state symbols as adopted by the state legislature.
Beyond the official state flower (rose) bird (bluebird) tree (sugar maple) and animal (beaver) New York has also designated a state shell, insect, reptile, sport, fossil, and dog among many other such designations, including the state muffin … which is the apple muffin in case you ever wondered.
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