She Serves a Cupful of Ecology

County Commission Chairwoman Nicki Grossman served legal paper cups on office workers after banning the polystyrene foam variety from the Broward County (Fla.) Governmental Center because of environmental concerns. Grossman’s order was met with hoots and hollers, and with a note from Commissioner Lori Parrish, who said she and her aide do not use the banned cups. “Both prefer Waterford,” Parrish said. “Hey, I’m serious about this. We have a real environmental problem . . . and we might as well start tackling the problem right here,” Grossman said. She said the plastic foam cups never decompose and can sit in landfills for centuries, so she will fine even the unwary visitor $1 for bringing a banned cup into the building, and will donate the money to the local chapter of the American Cancer Society. The chairwoman said she would be the cup cop, personally looking for violators and collecting the fines, although she acknowledged that her ban had dubious legal authority. The ban began as a friendly poke at Commissioner John Hart, who proposed legislation banning polystyrene foam containers but came to the meeting with coffee in a cup made of the material.

--The judge in the tax evasion trial of hotel tycoon Leona Helmsley said he would have to study defense evidence asserting that the government owes the Helmsleys $681,000 in tax refunds for 1983-1985, the years during which she is charged with cheating. U.S. District Judge John Walker in New York said the defense contention, based on two accounting firms’ calculations that some partnerships were not properly depreciated, would affect six counts of the 47-count indictment. The prosecution accuses Helmsley, 69, of billing $4 million worth of renovations at her Greenwich, Conn., estate to the hotel business, and failing to pay millions of dollars in taxes. Witnesses have said she charged to the business everything from underwear to a swimming pool cover. Her husband, Harry Helmsley, 80, was dropped as a defendant because a series of small strokes impaired his memory. Also charged in the case are Frank Turco, 45, and Joseph Licari, 51.

--Another New York notable, Ivana Trump, filed a $10-million lawsuit against the cosmetics company Pavion, claiming that it tried to mislead the public into believing that she “has either approved or sponsored” its new lipstick named “Ivana.” But Stanley Ackers, Pavion’s president, said he did not name the lipstick after anyone in particular. Trump runs the Plaza Hotel for her husband, Donald.