The city hopes that a ban on plastic bags passed in Los Angeles County last week will give ammunition to Manhattan Beach’s fight to keep its own similar ban.
On Tuesday, Nov. 16, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors approved a preliminary ordinance to ban plastic grocery bags at supermarkets, pharmacies and convenience stores in unincorporated parts of Los Angeles County. The ordinance also levies a 10-cent fee on paper bags.
The Manhattan Beach City Council unanimously passed its own ban on plastic bags in July 2008, with the intention of minimizing plastic debris in the ocean and ultimately phasing into reusable bags. The ban would have made Manhattan Beach the third city in the state to become plastic bag-free, after San Francisco and Malibu.
But a month later, the city was sued by the Save the Plastic Bag Coalition — an unincorporated lobbyist group formed of seven plastic bag retailers and a plastic bag recycling company — that alleged the ban was not compliant with the California Environment Quality Act (CEQA). The city has been in litigation over the matter ever since.
“The LA County decision supports our goal to ban plastic bags in our city,” said Manhattan Beach Mayor Richard Montgomery this week. “In fact, I view this as continued support with our plastic bag ban bill now being reviewed by the California Supreme Court. And with that review, I expect a complete victory on behalf of the city.”
Though the 88 cities in L.A. County have the option of adopting the county’s ban, Manhattan Beach will not do so, Montgomery said.
The county’s ban will be implemented in phases beginning July 2011. By 2012, the county expects that 1,000 stores in unincorporated regions of L.A. will be affected by the ban.
Montgomery said that the city’s ordinance — which would apply to retail businesses with more than 5,000 square feet, supermarkets and pharmacies — is stronger than the county’s, which will include retail businesses of more than 10,000 square feet, in addition to grocery stores and pharmacies.
“The city is going to stick with our plan,” Montgomery said. “We’re not going to lose ours until the Supreme Court makes us lose it.”
On its website, the city points to studies by the California Integrated Waste Management Board that claim 6 billion plastic bags are consumed each year in the state, with less than 5 percent being recycled.
Stephen Joseph, attorney for the Save the Plastic Bag Coalition, has argued that paper bags are worse for the environment, suggesting that they give off greater amounts of carbon and take up more space in landfills than do plastic bags.
A month before the City Council passed the ordinance in 2008, the coalition threatened litigation if the city moved forward with the ban without first preparing an Environmental Impact Report (EIR), as required by CEQA. The coalition had won a similar case against City of Oakland two months earlier.
Instead of conducting an EIR — which City Attorney Robert Wadden said would cost a minimum of $50,000 to $75,000 — the city opted for a detailed staff report and passed the ordinance.
The following month, the coalition sued and won in what Wadden called a “precedent-setting case.” The city unsuccessfully appealed the court’s decision in March 2009. A divided Second District Court of Appeal denied a second attempt at an appeal last January.
In February, the city took its case to the California Supreme Court, where it awaits being heard at the end of this year or early next year.
“We’re putting all of our support and weight on the California Supreme Court,” Montgomery said.
The Save the Plastic Bag Coalition, should it choose, has 30 days from the passing of L.A. County’s ordinance to file a similar lawsuit. ER
