The Hermosa Beach City Council took a big step on Tuesday night towards banning single-use plastic bags at grocery and convenience stores in the city.
The council voted unanimously to direct city staff to return with a single-use plastic bag ban ordinance at the council’s July 28 meeting. The ban would apply to about 50 retailers in the city, including grocery stores such as Ralph’s and Vons.
The idea is to reduce plastic waste that ends up in storm drains and on local beaches and in the ocean. The ban has support from environmental group Surfrider Foundation, as well as trade group California Grocers Association, which represents Ralph’s, Vons and other grocery chains.
In pursuing the ban, Hermosa would join about 138 other cities and counties in the state that have already enacted bans, including Manhattan Beach, the City of Los Angeles and Los Angeles County – making Hermosa, which prides itself on environmental progressiveness, a relatively late adopter.
“We are conspicuous in our absence among those cities who have done so,” former Councilman Jeff Duclos said to the council. “Plastic bags are the largest source of trash in our local waterways. We have a responsibility to do something about it.”
Under the ordinance, grocery stores would sell paper bags for 10 cents each in order to encourage the use of more durable, reusable bags.
To expedite things, the council determined the ban will be treated as categorically exempt from review under the California Environmental Quality Act, meaning the city will not take the time and bear the expense of drafting its own environmental impact review.
The council was confident the exemption will not be challenged, based in part on legal precedents set by the city of Manhattan Beach when it defended its plastic bag ban in California Supreme Court in 2011 and won. Other small cities have ushered in plastic bag bans through similar means, said Surfrider South Bay Chapter Chair Craig Cadwallader.
“Given the court history with Manhattan Beach and the EIR from the county, the city would be safe in going with a categorical exemption and coming back with a proposed ordinance,” Cadwallader told the council.
In September, Gov. Jerry Brown signed into law SB 270, which would have banned plastic bags at large grocery stores statewide starting July 1. However, a trade group was successful in gathering 800,000 signatures by the end of last year to protest the law. As a result, the statewide ban will go before voters on the November 2016 ballot.
Since then, environmentalists, particularly from Surfrider, have placed the onus back on Hermosa to take action.
“Our community has been asking for this for a long time,” said Councilman Hany Fangary. “We need to get going on this.”
