[img]1154|right|Meghan Sahli-Wells||no_popup[/img]City Hall’s plastic bag ban ordinance for small retailers celebrates its one-week birthday tomorrow, and a sinless six days it has been.
How do we know this?
A matter of conscience, Mayor Meghan Sahli-Wells, a sturdy advocate of the ban for environmental reasons, told the newspaper this morning.
Retailers are expected to follow the moral dictates of their consciences and obey the new law, even if it is not necessarily convenient.
When the environment-centric ordinance was designed last year – especially to relieve waterways of clogging clusters of single-use plastic bags, “we decided not to have bag police,” Ms. Sahli-Wells said.
“Enforcement would be based more on (individual) complaints rather than spot-checking by (understaffed) Code Enforcement.
“If a resident complains that bags are being put out, that is when we would respond.”
As an acutely alert activist, Her Honor was asked if, when she has gone shopping this week, she has devoted an eagle eye to adherence to the plastic bag ban.
“When I have gone to Trader Joe’s and to Target, I have seen total compliance,” Ms. Sahli-Wells said.
“Here is what I usually do when I am at the checkout counter: I will ask the cashier, ‘Hey, how is that bag ban going?’ They are the ones who hear if people are complaining.”
Ms. Sahli-Wells said the responses she has fielded show the transition to non-plastic bags “has been remarkably smooth.
“I am really pleased,” she said, speaking from under her activist’s hat.
“Partly, we have some very good timing. Unincorporated L.A. County imposed its ban a couple years before ours went into effect. L.A.’s, though, went into effect two or three days after Culver City’s, and so what we are seeing is a unity of regulations throughout the L.A. County. Santa Monica has had their ban for awhile, and West Hollywood, too. It is kind of making sense to people in this region at least.”
