City
Convenience store owners file lawsuit over bag ban
Toronto's bag ban might not be in the bag just yet. The Ontario Convenience Stores Association says it will mount a legal challenge to the city's decision to outlaw reusable plastic containers at the checkout. Earlier this week the public works committee voted 4-2 to proceed with the ban, though they decided to give stores a six-month grace period to use up existing stock before issuing fines.
At that meeting, dissenting councillor Denzil Minnan-Wong implored any special interest group to sue the city and put a stop to the proceedings. Today, he got his wish. OCSA believes the city didn't have the authority to issue the ban in the first place and says the rules were enacted without proper consultations.
The ban itself came about after a bizarre twist of events at a city council meeting earlier this year. During a debate about whether or not to scrap the 5-cent fee, councillor David Shiner introduced a surprise motion to eliminate bags at the checkout altogether. Council, much to Rob Ford's chagrin, voted 24-20 in favour.
In the aftermath, the city went back and conducted an environmental assessment and gave groups on both sides of the political coin a chance to speak at yesterday's committee meeting.
The main opponents to the prohibition are, naturally, groups with a vested interest in making sure retailers keep buying plastic bags. "Reverse the Bag Ban," one such group, produced a series of online PSA-style videos featuring talking dogs to try and drum up support for their campaign.
Here's the full text of the OCSA's lawsuit against the City of Toronto:
Are you in favour of banning bags? Are you likely to buy less or change your buying habits based on the city's decision?
Photo: "Plastic Bags" by ravenswift from the blogTO Flickr pool.
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Give me my plastic bags. I use the over and over for many things including garbage bags, but now instead I'll be buying plastic garbage bags so there'll be no change except for the inconvenience of having to carry everything in your arms rather than in a nice comfortable plastic bag.
Grocery stores produce ridiculous amounts of plastic (everything is wrapped in it, some places even wrap each banana in plastic) which is (as you may guess) bad for our environment. Recycling those things is not easy (how many of the things you own are actually made from recycled plastic or paper).
This law already exists in many asian countries. This is no fun, but these kinds of policies (and much worse) will be coming as we pollute the planet further and have less oil. The choice is now or later.
But then Ford, in his infinite wisdom decided he needed a victory at Council and went after what he thought was low-hanging fruit, and it blew up in his face when one of his supposed allies proposed the ban and the anti-Ford councillors jumping on the bandwagon so they can embarrass him and get their pound of flesh.
Now here we are, with a rushed, improperly thought out by-law (even if the intent is legit, there's little question that its been rushed without a lot of thought), and our councillors (thanks DMW) telling private citizens to sue Council to make it change its mind (even while supporting the recommendation to move forward with the ban), with taxpayers naturally footing the bill for the defense. Always easy to spend other people's money, isn't it Councillors?
No one at Council has clean hands on this one.
Respect for taxpayers indeed
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pacific_Garbage_Patch
(there's more than one of these patches, btw)
On a trip to the Dominican 7 years ago, I saw so much plastic garbage on the beaches - breast implants, bags, small plastic toys/trinkets, shoes, pieces of homes etc...
Do yourself and the future inhabitants of Earth a favour and think outside the box. Is it so hard to get a packsack or an over the shoulder bag to carry your groceries? I'm getting so tired of the ME attitude. People are selfish; learn some humility. Future generations will thank you when they can still drink the water and breathe the air.
Speak for yourself. They work fine for me and lots of other people. I use them as garbage bags, for transporting dirty stuff like shoes and, when I had a dog, for cleaning up crap.
"and are toxic when decomposing. Also a hazard for wildlife and a lot more things."
How about we look at compostable bags then? There's got to be something cheaper than $1/bag when people forget or aren't able to bring their reusables.
"Grocery stores produce ridiculous amounts of plastic (everything is wrapped in it, some places even wrap each banana in plastic) which is (as you may guess) bad for our environment. Recycling those things is not easy (how many of the things you own are actually made from recycled plastic or paper)."
Completely true, which is why the ban doesn't make much sense. It targets a tiny portion of the overall plastic being used, and the most re-usable portion at that. A real solution would target the larger problem.
This ban is mostly about making Rob Ford look bad. And I love that, it was absolutely hilarious when they passed it. But, even though I've barely bought any plastic bags at the grocery store in years, I think it's impractical, not very helpful (except symbolically) and frankly, I think it's the government overreaching.
If I was a store owner, I'd put small boxes of bags on my shelf (try and stop that when there are already all sorts of plastic bags available) that customers could buy. The only inconvenience is that customers would have to grab them, bring them to the checkout themselves and then unbox them. It would lead to more waste in the end, since not all bags would get used and there'd be the box left over.
The 5c fee was the perfect compromise: it drastically reduced bag usage while not inconveniencing anyone.
I can't believe all of the people running around with iPhones containing rare earth metals who are simultanesouly bashing plastic bags. If it weren't an affront to individual liberties, I would say that there should be a ban on commenters who pretend to have an ounce of scientific knowledge.
We have to realise that part of being Left is getting up every morning trying to find SOMETHING to ban or bitch about.
The whining and near temper tantrums are hilarious, look up what the ban is about.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/stupid?s=t
Most plastic bags are biodegradable. Some have holes in the bottom but to reuse, place the wax paper from inside cereal boxes or any other dry products as your base liner.
Study after study, paper bags cost more to produce than plastic bags and aren't pratical when it's raining or when cold items in hot weather dampens the paper because of condensation.
'Biodegradable' plastic bags takes less space at a garbage dump thatn the items in it.
Think back before the old mayor miller days. All was good for consumers and business owners.
Toronto councillors have a personal vendetta against the mayor and we should not be their pawns. They have to smarten up before committing political suicide.
Re: finding plastic bags in the ocean/etc. That is a whole other issue. People who litter should be held responsible with more enforcement.