City Council may pursue plastic bag ban
A suggested law meant to eliminate plastic bags from all retailers meets with industry resistance.
Brittany Levine
Glendale News-Press
10/24/2011
Glendale could soon followin the footsteps of Los Angeles County and several cities throughout the state that have banned plastic bags at major retail stores.
The City Council on Tuesday will determine whether to pursue a law similar to the one that recently went into effect for unincorporated areas of L.A. County. That law, which will affect more than 2,000 stores by January 2012, bans plastic bags and requires retailers to levy a 10-cent surcharge per paper bag.
Other cities, such as Pasadena, have already started drafting their own bans to be in lockstep with the county. Burbank officials have indicated that they may follow their lead.
“The negative impact to the environment as a result of these bags motivates us to ban plastic bags,” said Public Works Director Steve Zurn, adding that officials envision a rule that prevents all retailers, from grocery to drug stores, from using plastic bags.
Glendale officials began pushing for a ban three years ago, but as legal challenges against other cities started to pop up, City Hall switched into wait-and-see mode.
Save the Plastic Bag Coalition, an advocacy group, sued Manhattan Beach after it banned plastic bags because the city did not first commission an Environmental Impact Report on the potential impacts of the new law. The plastics group won at the Los Angeles County Superior Court level, but the state Supreme Court reversed the ruling.
