Free Republic

Maryland lawmakers advanced a bill Monday that would prohibit stores from providing plastic bags to customers starting July 2022. An iteration of this legislation passed the House and was voted out of the Senate Finance Committee last year, but it did not reach the Senate floor due to the abbreviated legislative session. With an amendment from Del. Brian Crosby (D-St. Mary’s) that would allow orchard farmers to provide plastic bags to customers for its fruits and vegetables, the Plastic Bag Reduction Act, sponsored by Del. Brooke Lierman (D-Baltimore City) and Sen. Malcom Augustine (D-Prince George’s), moved out of the House...

We now have to pay a 5-cent tax for each paper or plastic shopping bag we get at stores in Montgomery County, Maryland. And I've already gotten suckered into it twice on opening day. (This new tax went into effect Jan. 1 -- kind of like my free Wendy's Frosties, only it doesn't require me to bring my own cups!) I remember when the bag trend hit Washington, D.C., a couple years back, where everyone was charged 5 cents every time they needed a bag for purchases of food and alcohol (including, as luck would have it for me, Subway)....

Update: Jan Gee of the Washington Food Industry says a Web site with more information on the effort to repeal the bag fee will go live Tuesday or Wednesday. She said it would appear at stopthebagtax.com, where an effort against a California bag fee currently resides. Still mad about that 20-cent grocery bag fee? If a group of Seattle grocers gets its way, the fee could be history, according to a report in the Puget Sound Business Journal. The Washington Food Industry, a trade group for independent grocers such as Red Apple and Metropolitan Market, launched a signature-gathering drive on...