In the middle of his final week as president/CEO of the Chamber of Commerce after 30 years, Steve Rose, a critic of the new polystyrene ban, has a question for City Hall:

“Why is such a small community taking a stiff stand against polystyrene when it is easily reachable (just over the city border in Los Angeles and elsewhere)?”

Not that Mr. Rose expects the ban to be particularly effective or permanent.

“Activists should remember,” he said, “that 40 years ago it was the environmentalists who got rid of paper bags. Supposedly for good. They didn’t want to chop down trees.”

At supermarket checkout counters today, customers are asked, “Paper or plastic?”

Surveying Culver City’s 200 eateries under the polystyrene ban, Mr. Rose, an economic conservative, said he is not concerned about Downtown restaurants compensating for the container changeover by elevating prices.

“I want to see about the people who go to the doughnut shop on Sepulveda Boulevard and Ballona Creek,” he said. “They get into a fight with people using polystyrene. Then they figure out they are in Los Angeles. Oh.”

To seemingly clinch his argument, Mr. Rose contributed this fillip:

“I would like to know the number of political activists  who will go to the Harlow restaurant on Washington Boulevard, diagonally across from the Kirk Douglas Theatre. They are in Los Angeles. They are going to be using polystyrene.”