Posted on 05/17/2015 10:56:12 AM PDT by Signalman
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) -- Alarmed about cities trying to outlaw plastic bags, the director of the Missouri Grocers Association decided to do something about it. So Dan Shaul turned to his state legislator- himself - and guided a bill to passage barring local governments from banning the bags.
Shaul's dual role in state government and business may be a bit out of the norm. Yet his actions are not. In capitols across the country, businesses are increasingly using their clout to back laws prohibiting cities and counties from doing things that might affect their ability to make money.
In the past five years, roughly a dozen states have enacted laws barring local governments from requiring businesses to provide paid sick leave to employees. The number of states banning local minimum wages has grown to 15. And while oil-rich states such as Texas and Oklahoma are pursuing bills banning local restrictions on drilling, other states where agriculture is big business have been banning local limitations on the types of seeds sown for crops.
It seems no issue is too small for businesses to take to capitol halls.
(Excerpt) Read more at hosted.ap.org ...
This is why I look back at my years as a mindless Big Business cheerleader with embarrassment.
So, what would be the contrary interest here? That conservatives should encourage local bag bans or forced paid sick leave or minimum wages or giving in to some strange ‘GMO bad’ seed ban?
None of the issues presented in the story seem to be anything beyond local liberal agenda being enacted and then thwarted by conservative state legislatures.
Plastic grocery bags are a good thing. I save them and use them for other things.
I buy them by the thousand for under $20. I’m sure that this will become a smuggling crime in California once the bag ban comes into effect this summer. Meanwhile, I’ve been stockpiling. Figure I could make a nice small business out of selling bags in the parking lot.
Up until this point, I’ve had great luck in educating businesses as to their responsibility to oppose interventions into relationships with customers by local government. I’ve only once had to walk out of a store with my purchase refunded when they refused to bag it without my paying fees for each bag.
With the state ban, it will be that much harder to fight at the local business level.
Austin banned plastic shopping bags, largely by the redefinition of ‘litter’ as ‘pollution.’
So now, if I stop at an Austin grocery I’ll only pick up the one or two items I need immediately and do the rest of my shopping out of town. It saves on the city sales tax too.
Love the “Associated Propaganda’. Right is wrong, up is down and left is right.
The headline should read, “States force cities to accept their control and the end of a gun”.
Plastic bags don’t work as well paper bags for placing over a female’s head.
Absolutely-those plastic grocery bags are recycled as trash can liners, used for cleaning the cats’ litter boxes, and corralling small tools and such on jobsites-paper bags get soggy, tear and break and those cloth ones are germ carriers when used for groceries-but I guess the banning of something practical you can recycle just makes some people happy...
Maybe not, but plastic bags work much better than paper when applied to the mouth of mean males (sarcasm)...
Maine has a bill in the legislature to ban municipalities from enacting minimum wage laws. Portland and several others are considering such local ordinances.
They don’t care about the bag ban. If local cities and town want to do it, let them.
Portland Maine now has a bag fee. Strangely the JoAnn Fabric & Craft Store does not have to comply because less than 15% of their merchandise is food related (they sell candy bars t the register). They make a point of letting you know as you are buying that the bags are free.
Plastic bags work just fine. The user is responsible for the pollution. I’m sure they can create a plastic bag that would decompose into harmless stuff.
Depends on if you want them to be able to breathe. /sarcasm
Oh yeah, I see lots of uses.
I’ve decided that the envirowackos are schizophrenic-aren’t those the same people who insisted we use the plastic bags to save trees in the Jimmy Carter days?
The plastic bags used by Dollar General usually decompose by the time I get them to my truck-...
I’m 63 y/o, have 4 kids, 11 grandkids, no wife, but kids doing well. I worry greatly about their future in a country and especially being in CA, where the whacko’s have or are controlling the future. I’m just not optimistic.
I’m your age, I’m working on going totally galt and off grid out here in BFE, many miles from what liberal city people consider “real” civilization-making a self sustaining cabin and place for me, my cub, sibling, etc in case it all goes boom...
Just another reason why we moved to Lakeway instead of Austin when my hubby retired.
Los Angeles did ban plastic grocery bags but not all other plastic. They are now allowing plastic grocery bags for the most part. You may have individual stupid city councils banning plastic bags.
I myself hate paper bags as I have to be very careful holding the bag by their fragile handles that rip off at the slightest weight applied. I cannot grab as I do with plastic bags, a bunch of bags all at once by the handle.
I have to make multiple trips to bring in the groceries vs 1 trip with plastic bags. They are also near useless if it is raining out. With plastic it is easy but not a chance of it working with paper.
I will not buy separate tote bags for the groceries and have to carry them from store to store. This ain’t old Russia.
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