By Martin Macias Jr.
LOS ANGELES – Taking a sip of your drink at local restaurants and fast food joints across the Golden State will have to be done without a straw – unless you request one – if legislation approved Thursday by lawmakers is signed by Gov. Jerry Brown.
The bill, which restricts the distribution of plastic straws by restaurants, was approved in a 45-20 vote by the California State Assembly, having already been approved Monday by the State Senate.
The governor has not indicated if he will sign. It was not among the bills he signed Friday.
In 2014, Brown signed a bill banning single-use plastic bags at food markets, liquor stores and pharmacies.
If Assembly Bill 1884 is signed into law, California would be the first in the country to adopt a statewide ban on plastic straws at sit-down restaurants.
Full-service restaurants that violate the law more than twice would be fined $25 each day they’re in violation but only up to a maximum $300, according to the bill. Restaurants would instead be allowed to offer paper or metal straws.
The bill, introduced Jan. 17 by California Assembly Majority Leader Ian Calderon, D-Whittier, was not opposed by restaurant and business lobby groups.
The Plastics Industry Association, the California Chamber of Commerce and the California Restaurant Association have maintained a neutral stance on the bill.
The marketing analysis firm Technomics found that Americans use 175 million straws each day. Many of them end up in bodies of water and on beaches.
They aren’t only an eyesore, they can eventually make their way into the tissue of marine life that humans eat, according to a state environmental analysis of the bill.
The report said 25 percent of fish examined by researchers in California, New Jersey and Indonesia contained plastic in their flesh.
Plastic straws have become a flashpoint at city council meetings and in company boardrooms even though they don’t factor greatly into the global plastic waste crisis.
University of Georgia researchers said in April that plastic straws make up 2,000 tons of the nearly 9 million tons of plastic waste that ends up in the Earth’s bodies of water each year.
In July, global coffee titan Starbucks announced it will eliminate plastic straws from all of its locations by 2020, the largest food and beverage company to do so.
A number of California cities – including coastal enclaves San Francisco, Santa Cruz and Malibu – have already moved to ban plastic straws from their jurisdictions.
Malibu also adopted ordinances over the years banning polystyrene containers and plastic sand bags within city limits, along with plastic cutlery and stirrers at restaurants and fast food joints.
The California Coastal Commission has recorded roughly 835,425 plastic straws and stirrers collected between 1988 and 2014 during organized coastal cleanups.
Using trash collected at beach cleanups over five years, a pair of Australian scientists estimated that 7.5 million plastic straws are laying around the country’s shorelines.
A 2016 World Economic Forum report found that, if current trends hold, there will be more plastic than fish, by weight, in oceans by 2050.
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56 Comments
When are we going to have a bill restrictioning Democratic party
Ridiculous
How?? Plastic destroys the earth! Wake up! Slobs don’t know how to throw their trash away and draws and plastic and trash get to the ocean! They find tons of plastic on beaches! Tons of trash a day flush in to the ocean! Have some compassion for wild life in the ocean and our earth! We only have one so take care of it! ?
Aren’t there more important things to focus on?
Its a long term thing.
No.
Not really. Plastic is smothering our reefs and Marine life. REEFS ARE HOW WE PRODUCE OXYGEN. This is the BEST time.
The Eco system is like Jenga. You can only get away with damaging the structure for so long, then it collapses.
Works for me, anything to help even if its small af.
What about plastic water bottles?
So dumb.
So dumb
Seriously.? Will there be a fine? Will there be jail time?
Gangs. Criminals. Homelessness. Drugs.
Annnnnd STRAWS
Believe it or not, yes the waitress that gives someone a straw will be arrested. Barbara Gola Proffitt. I remember reading about it.
They figured out plastic straws will derail the bullet train
You know how horrible those paper straws are! Just gonna cost the business more money cause someone will need like ten straws to finish their drink. Lol
One damn video and California goes nuts.
Does this mean will have to go across state lines to buy our plastic straws?
Don’t worry, I know a guy…
Can’t they find other things to do rather than take our straws away. How stupid is this. ?
I guess none you have actually read the bill. It only applies to sit down restaurants. You can buy all the straws you want in CA. A lot of restaurants had started limiting straws to their guests years ago. The glass of water that comes to your table doesn’t have a straw in it any longer. Did you notice? Claim jumper did away with that 8 years ago. Why didn’t you panic then? They did it because they wanted to save money. I don’t like living in a polluted world. Do you?
This is a law. Which means restriction of rights. Big difference.
Lyndia Martin. All you have to do is ask for one.
so…big deal. sipping through a straw makes no impact on my quality of life. you can still get a straw if you ask for one. It’s like one of those laws you never knew existed. Yes I’m aware it’s a law. Who is it impacting? The restaurants? I don’t think so. It’s just one less thing they have to purchase and store on site. sometimes change is good.
Lyndia Martin Laws also restrict your “right” to murder someone. What tyranny we live under!
Cathy Martin, so you’re ok giving up your freedoms, regardless of how minute? Are you a socialist?
Jose Franco, there comes a point when governments become tyrannical. Stalin, Mussolini, Franco.
Cathy Martin, then why does it need to be a law? That’s a much bigger step.
No, I believe people need to be responsible for their actions. Greed has make us lazy. I can’t sit back and watch careless people trash the environment. You are equating a limitation on straws to socialism.That’s just plain silly.(BTW straws used to be paper) If you think it’s OK to breath poisonous smog and eat food laced with pesticides go for it. Have your cereal with a side of DDT. I just don’t want to live in that world. Go to India or China and see what it’s like. They have no environmental laws. You can’t go in the water there, much less drink it. When your kids and grand kids are born with strange conditions caused by pollution. Are you going to take responsibility for your actions? Or are you going to blame somebody else? Apparently you lack compassion for your fellow man and our planets future.
Doesn’t matter what they do, California will still SUCK!
In Seattle these compostable straws have been popping up. Best of both worlds
These snowflakes get hurt over everything ?
Dear Governor, you are a moron if you sign this, and our legislature needs to step down.
Sincerely,
Fed up Californian who is sick of the toxic crap
Using a paper straw or no straw will not kill you, but a plastic one will take about 500 years to decompose and kill thousands of wild animals. This is a great bill to introduce to California. It isn’t aimed at anything other than reducing pollution, so why would you not be on board with a cleaner tomorrow? Try glass reusable straws ? they are cheap and easy to use if you want that straw experience!
As a kid I remember the paper straws. They were replaced by the plastic straws.
Don’t ban straws but make them available upon request. There are those of us that depend on plastic straws when we’re out at a restaurant, coffee shop, theme park, etc. to be able to have a beverage. I can’t lift a glass and need a straw. I also can’t use a reusable straw because I’m unable to clean it properly and since I have an autoimmune disease this can be a danger. For many people, drinking (and eating foods like soup) requires the use of a plastic straw. And yes, specifically a single-use plastic straw, as all of the other straws currently available on the market are problematic in different ways. Paper breaks down and becomes a choking hazard, steel and glass are an injury risk because they are too hard, other reusable straws require either a dishwasher at home or the dexterity/fine motor skills to clean them, etc.
I understand they’re bad for the environment but so are a million other things. Banning all straws is ridiculous.
Limit them to the people who need them.
Straw sales just become the number one selling item in California…thanks liberals
There will be a 10 day waiting period to buy straws provided you pass the background check.
Yet another reason leaving CA was a great move! Can’t wait to see what else the idiots in office will come up with next. So ludicrous!
Balloons
Carol Ann Gressman Nelson yeah I’ve heard of that one too.
Stephanie Coburn ?
10 years prison time for taking straws across the California border…my defense didn’t holdup as the straw man in the crime…I admit it, I messed-up; should have been bringing in hypodermic needles to San Francisco for their free needle exchange program…could have made a killing
I grow my own organic straw. DM for pricing.
I can provide it by the bale.
People need to use trash cans.
Big government
Retard Jerry Brown must feel so important now. Such important business
Straw police,, hiw about focusing on crime
Welcome to JackAss Jerrys world !!
Condemn plastic straws but not plastic water bottles. Do you see an issue brewing.
maybe we should take a straw poll on this. ??
Lol
Yess!! Ban straws and plastic! Plastic never goes away and ends up getting to the ocean hurting the ocean life whales, dolphins, fish ect…its not fair and we are killing this earth with plastic and building more and more houses and killing nature that’s been here first!!
All the people saying dumb which is most of the comments are all dumb brain washed self centered dummies that don’t know what plastic is doing to the earth and so many straws are found on the beach in the water hurting the wildlife..saw a video of a straw stabbed in the middle of a sea turtles head..this is not ok….if u think it’s dumb then u got issues and have no brain CLEARL Y, START REASEARCHING