Wegmans chainwide paper bag fee

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Re: Wegmans chainwide paper bag fee

Post by storewanderer »

HCal wrote: April 17th, 2022, 10:37 pm

The bag regulations put into place before the statewide bag ban are grandfathered in, but that does not mean that those cities are exempt from the statewide law. Here is the preemption clause: https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/face ... &article=5.

Cities that are grandfathered "may continue to enforce and implement that ordinance, resolution, regulation, or rule" but there is no clause saying they don't have to follow state law as well. The grandfather clause protects cities that have stronger laws (like a 25 cent charge) from being forced to lower it.

I'm well aware that stores in certain cities are only charging 5 cents, but that doesn't mean it is legal. It simply means that they have calculated that they can get away with it due to the local political environment. This is no different from the cities that declared themselves exempt from lockdowns during COVID. It's not legal, but if the local police are on your side and the state is too busy to care, then nothing will happen.
Right from the link you have there, is this:
"(c) (1) A city, county, or other local public agency that has adopted, before September 1, 2014, an ordinance, resolution, regulation, or rule relating to reusable grocery bags, single-use carryout bags, or recycled paper bags may continue to enforce and implement that ordinance, resolution, regulation, or rule that was in effect before that date. Any amendments to that ordinance, resolution, regulation, or rule on or after January 1, 2015, shall be subject to subdivision (b), except the city, county, or other local public agency may adopt or amend an ordinance, resolution, regulation, or rule to increase the amount that a store shall charge with regard to a recycled paper bag, compostable bag, or reusable grocery bag to no less than the amount specified in Section 42283. "

The bold is the grandfathering in thing.

The no fee or 5 cent fee cities are certainly allowed to go ahead and pass an ordinance to get the fee up to a minimum of 10 cents though.

It was interesting the way they wrote that up. They could have written something in here to the effect of a preemption is only valid if the statewide standards are met (like the 10 cent fee), but they didn't.

Also certain counties, notably Santa Barbara, only wrote into their law a paper bag fee. They wrote into their law no fee on reusable bags. So those super thick plastic bags that are being marketed as "reusable" are technically not subject to a bag fee in that county (though many stores are charging the 10 cent fee for those, not all are).

And to pull this back to the topic - the above is why the retailer is better off making this decision on what to do. The way these laws have been drawn up with so many inconsistencies is an administrational nightmare for various parties involved. We don't even know who is supposed to enforce this in CA (it isn't the local sheriff or police... and I didn't think it was the Department of Justice either but they are who put down the hammer in Lincoln...)....
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Re: Wegmans chainwide paper bag fee

Post by HCal »

The part that you boldfaced says that grandfathered jurisdictions may raise the amount of the fee to at least 10 cents, but may make no other changes to their pre-existing laws. That does not exempt them from the rest of the bill.
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Re: Wegmans chainwide paper bag fee

Post by storewanderer »

HCal wrote: April 18th, 2022, 12:02 am The part that you boldfaced says that grandfathered jurisdictions may raise the amount of the fee to at least 10 cents, but may make no other changes to their pre-existing laws. That does not exempt them from the rest of the bill.
Not sure what to tell you. I am only telling you what goes on at the stores in those cities. They are only dispensing paper bags and super thick plastic bags. They do not dispense thin bags. And I will assure you that some of their legal and compliance departments have contacted the State and CalRecycles for guidance and set their policies in those cities accordingly.

There have been situations where store management gets transferred into stores in these cities from other cities with the bag fee, sees the stores not implementing it, and immediately implements it (since the PLU code for the fee is active in the system, just that nobody is using it). After customer and employee comments are made and research is done, the store is told by regional management to stop charging the fee. I have observed this happen with more than one of the drugstore chains.

And the above example is another reason why a retailer taking the initiative to have a uniform policy like Wegman's is doing is a much better thing than these state regulations. As long as the retailer does the right thing here (that means not dispensing those super thick plastic bags).
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Re: Wegmans chainwide paper bag fee

Post by HCal »

Yes, I know what is going on in certain cities. I was just pointing out that this is not legally sanctioned, as cities cannot be exempt from the mandatory 10 cent charge for plastic and paper bags.

CalRecycle even mentions this on their website: What if my city or county has its own bag ban? Every store in California that is subject to the statewide single-use-carryout bag ban must comply with its requirements, regardless of where the store is located. If the store is located in a city or county that has its own bag ordinance, however, the store may need to comply with the local requirements as well.
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Re: Wegmans chainwide paper bag fee

Post by storewanderer »

HCal wrote: April 18th, 2022, 11:45 pm Yes, I know what is going on in certain cities. I was just pointing out that this is not legally sanctioned, as cities cannot be exempt from the mandatory 10 cent charge for plastic and paper bags.

CalRecycle even mentions this on their website: What if my city or county has its own bag ban? Every store in California that is subject to the statewide single-use-carryout bag ban must comply with its requirements, regardless of where the store is located. If the store is located in a city or county that has its own bag ordinance, however, the store may need to comply with the local requirements as well.
Again, I am just telling you what is going on at the stores in those cities that I mentioned above where they have a grandfathered bag ban in place without a fee component (or with a 5 cent fee component). The stores are doing what they are doing and have been advised what they are doing is within the law. Except in the case of Lincoln where the state did not accept what was going on there and came down on the retailers in that city that were not complying with the statewide requirements.

So regardless of how you or I may think this should go, I am just telling you how it is going in those cities. If I ran a store in one of those cities and it was up to me whether or not to charge the fee, I would have to assess bag usage and customer behavior to decide if it made sense to charge the fee or not.

I am not sure the "fee" is what they are referring to as "requirements" either. I think what they are referring to as "requirements" is the specifications of what bags are legal/what bags are illegal.
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