Customers flock to Sunshine Indian Market in Canoga Park for the store’s samosas, rice and parathas (pan-fried Indian flatbread). At checkout, store owner Rajinder Kumar offers them a choice of bags, including plastic.
Soon those plastic bags will be gone. The second phase of Los Angeles’ plastic bag ban goes into effect on Tuesday, impacting markets like Sunshine Indian, as well as an array of other outlets that sell food, including 7-11s, gas stations and liquor stores.
The city enacted a sweeping ban on the bags last year, but implemented it in phases, starting with the larger supermarkets on Jan. 1 this year.
City officials contend the first phase is working well, but the real test will come when the ban hits smaller stores.
At Sunshine, customers have already started bringing in their own cloth bags.
“This is a good idea,” Kumar said. “Plastic is not good for the environment.”
But across town, the reaction was less enthusiastic. As she left Al Hoa Supermarket, a small grocer in Chinatown, Jenny Chen, 60, looked dismayed when reminded of the looming ban. “The old people like them (plastic bags),” she said. “They go out, and they forget to bring their own bags. They also use them for trash bags.”
L.A.’s plastic bag ban is intended to encourage shoppers to bring reusable bags to stores, or pay 10 cents for paper bags. Supporters contend the plastic bags litter streets and clog up storm drains, and that the city spends millions of dollars cleaning up the debris. Opponents, including the plastics industry, argue the ban hurts the local economy and that paper bags are worse for the environment.
Since the first half of the ban took effect, grocery stores across L.A. are generally in compliance, said Ron Fong, president of the California Grocers Association, a trade group. City officials also report they’ve seen widespread compliance. The ban is also declared a success by environmental groups like Heal the Bay.
But business is down dramatically at Crown Poly, a Huntington Park-based manufacturer of plastic bags. “Our expansion has come to an absolute halt,” said General Manager Cathy Browne.
Crown Poly’s core business is small grocers, so the company is bracing for another hit on July 1, Browne said.
City Councilman Paul Krekorian called the ban at smaller stores an “important next step for our city” in a statement. He and other city officials will hold an event Monday to highlight phase two, which applies to all small markets, gas stations, and liquor stores that sell food. Restaurants and larger department stores that don’t sell food will continue to be exempt.
Stores that don’t comply face fines ranging from $100-$500, depending on the number of offenses, said Jackie David, public information director with the Bureau of Sanitation. She recently spent a day around the San Fernando Valley to warn store owners of the July 1 deadline. The Bureau of Sanitation is overseeing enforcement, but doesn’t have the manpower to check in on every shop, so the city is relying on self-enforcement, David said.
“It will be a bigger test in terms of the smaller stores,” David said.
It will also be a test for shoppers. Crown Poly’s Browne personally goes to stores and sees people simply paying 10 cents for the paper bags and not bringing in cloth or reusable bags. Paper bags are worse for the environment, she contends.
David counters that the city is already seeing success from the ban. In the San Fernando Valley’s Lopez Canyon Environmental Center, where green waste, like grass cutting and leaves, is recycled, workers notice fewer plastic bags, David said.
People will eventually remember to bring their bags when they go shopping, she believes.
“It’s a habit that needs to be developed,” David said.
