In the Pipeline: Time to rein in city’s plastic bag overreach

Well, it’s back. But did it ever really go away?

The city’s plastic bag ban was a hot topic last year, and I believe it played a part in reshaping the Huntington Beach City Council.

But for many of us, the issue was never really the bags. It was more the public’s right to vote on such an issue.

I’m all for helping to control the flow of litter as best we can. And I have no problem with the attempt to limit how certain plastic bags are distributed. But I do have an issue with the fact that such an important topic affecting so many residents did not go on the ballot.

Recently elected City Council member Mike Posey on Tuesday plans to propose that the ban be repealed. It’s a pretty big move right out of the gate, but as he told me, it’s an issue that he thinks helped get him elected.

“Number one, I’m doing it to send a message back to the supporters that voted for sweeping change when it comes to limiting nanny-state government,” he said. “We’re adults, we know how to recycle and we know how to pick up after ourselves. We didn’t need a sweeping mandate from the government to handle a microscopic problem.”

The same sort of fight is happening at the state level.

Starting in July, a new California law that bans single-use plastic bags at supermarkets was to take effect, but that looks to be in jeopardy. More than 800,000 signatures were gathered recently, many more than the 500,000 required, to freeze the law and let statewide voters decide the issue in 2016.

In Huntington Beach, voters object to the city government mandating that stores charge 10 cents for paper bags, which used to be free. When you start reading the guts of the statewide bill, it gets even worse. Stores can actually be fined for charging less than 10 cents but are allowed to charge more. It’s this government price-setting that concerns many of us. What happens when the government decides the price should be 20 or 30 cents?

“Some people are asking me to just amend the ordinance to eliminate the 10-cent charge,” Posey said. “But my position is that the voters should decide. I don’t think there should be any sort of ban. That was the whole crux of my campaign. The City Council that passed this created no benchmarks to determine if there’s a problem, how bad the problem may be or how to measure effectiveness.

“An issue like this, in my opinion, should never have even been brought to our City Council. Our first obligation is to manage the budget so that we have the money for public safety and infrastructure.… Getting involved in nanny-state ordinances was a waste of the City Council’s time and insulting to responsible voters.”

Both our local bag law and the new state law, sweeping as they are, are also seemingly ineffective. You can still get plastic bags in a store’s produce section. Fast-food places are not affected, yet they generate millions of plastic bags. And the government mandate about what kind of reusable bags are allowed to be sold in stores goes on for paragraph after paragraph. Do we really want the government deciding all these things for us?

If a store is losing business over this and decides it wants to absorb the cost of the plastic bags, should it really be fined starting at $1,000 per day for doing so? Well, that’s how it stands in the state law.

Posey bristled at the fact that some of our previous City Council members also wanted to ban plastic foam.

“They wanted to get rid of Styrofoam, hurting local businesses by forcing them to remove takeout cups and containers,” Posey said. “But what about the Styrofoam that comes in UPS boxes or IKEA boxes or Amazon.com packages? That’s the real volume of Styrofoam, and it wouldn’t have touched that.

“They also went ahead and banned dog and cat sales in Huntington Beach, which destroyed two family-owned businesses here in town. And all people did was go over and buy their pets in our neighboring cities.

“I think it’s time we stopped punishing voters and businesses with all of these overreaches.”

When it comes to plastic bags and keeping the environment cleaner, I think enforcement of littering laws is key. But so is creating public awareness to help people understand why they need to be more careful with their garbage. And how about more regularly scheduled beach cleanup events? Those, to me, are much more important and effective than dictatorial laws that are impossible to measure and inconsistently applied.

What do you think?

CHRIS EPTING is the author of 25 books, including “Huntington Beach Chronicles: The Heart of Surf City.” You can chat with him on Twitter @chrisepting or follow his column at facebook.com/hbindependent.