California Senate To Consider Plastic Bag Ban After First Of The Year 2014! http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2013/nov/19/tp-encinitas-council-set-to-talk-about-bag-ban/
ENCINITAS — The City Council will debate Wednesday whether to consider a ban on disposable plastic bags or wait for the state to take action early next year.
“There’s a lot of moving parts to the issue,” Mayor Teresa Barth said Monday as she discussed the options available to the council and the choices that other California cities have made.
Barth stressed that the council won’t be voting on a bag ban at Wednesday’s meeting, but will discuss a new city report on plastic bag restrictions and direct city staff on what to do next.
That direction could include asking staff to draft a bag-ban ordinance for a future council vote; asking for more information on the issue; or taking a wait-and-see approach because a statewide ban is in the works, Barth said.
The state Senate is expected to tackle a bag ban bill in early 2014 — a similar bill this year failed to win passage by three votes.
Some 80 communities in California have adopted ordinances “promoting the use of reusable shopping bags over both plastic and paper carryout bags,” according to a report created by the city’s Environmental Commission.
Most of the plastic bag ban ordinances apply to grocery stores, drugstores and mini-markets, but not to restaurants, the report states. The regulations often also include a fee for paper bag use — 10 to 25 cents a bag.
In San Diego County, Solana Beach has already implemented a plastic bag ban, and San Diego, Oceanside and Chula Vista are considering such measures. Los Angeles and San Francisco also have plastic bag ordinances.
Wednesday’s meeting begins at 6 p.m. at City Hall, 505 S. Vulcan Ave. The bag ban item is toward the end of an agenda that also includes a yearly city status report by the mayor. At 4:30 p.m. the council will also hold a special closed-session meeting to discuss the potential purchase of the former Pacific View School site.
BARBARA HENRY • Special to the u-t
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