NORTHAMPTON — Coca-Cola is yanking the plug on its Northampton bottling plant, and 175 western Massachusetts paychecks are going down the drain with it.

The bombshell landed Friday in a state WARN filing. The first cuts hit August 15, the rest by November 30, and by Christmas the lights are out at one of the city's biggest employers.

Coca-Cola's parting line was the corporate equivalent of a wave from the doorway. Spokesperson Sara Rosenthal said the company was "grateful to have been part of the Northampton community for many years" and promised to help workers find new jobs — somewhere.

The company line is that Americans aren't drinking enough soda and the bottling work is moving to third-party operators. The Beacon Hill line is — well, no one's heard one yet.

That's because the door at the Massachusetts state border has barely stopped swinging this year. Through May 31 alone, the state has booked more than 5,504 WARN-filed layoffs — Panera with 92 cuts in Franklin, Zipcar with 65 in Boston, Thermo Fisher Scientific with 80 in Franklin, and now Coca-Cola. Some 33,340 residents fled to other states between July 2024 and July 2025, with most setting up new lives in Florida, Texas, and New Hampshire.

Governor Maura Healey filed her $305 million Mass Wins Act in April, a bill the governor framed as a way to "lower costs" and "make it easier to build and grow here." The businesses, it seems, did not get the memo.