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California Considers $1,000 Fine for Waiters Offering Unsolicited Plastic Straws


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2018 Jan 25, 10:41am   14,007 views  52 comments

by zzyzzx   ➕follow (9)   💰tip   ignore  

http://reason.com/blog/2018/01/25/california-bill-would-criminalize-restau

Ian Calderon wants restaurateurs to think long and hard before giving you a straw.

Calderon, the Democratic majority leader in California's lower house, has introduced a bill to stop sit-down restaurants from offering customers straws with their beverages unless they specifically request one. Under Calderon's law, a waiter who serves a drink with an unrequested straw in it would face up to 6 months in jail and a fine of up to $1,000.

"We need to create awareness around the issue of one-time use plastic straws and its detrimental effects on our landfills, waterways, and oceans," Calderon explained in a press release.

This isn't just Calderon's crusade. The California cities of San Luis Obispo and Davis both passed straws-on-request laws last year, and Manhattan Beach maintains a prohibition on all disposable plastics. And up in Seattle, food service businesses won't be allowed to offer plastic straws or utensils as of July.

The Los Angeles Times has gotten behind the movement, endorsing straws-on-request policies in an editorial that also warned that "repetitive sucking may cause or exacerbate wrinkles on the lips or around the mouth." Celebrity astronomer Neil DeGrasse Tyson (always up for a little chiding) and Entourage star Adrian Grenier have appeared in videos where an octopus slaps them in the face for using a plastic straw.

The actual number of straws being used is unclear. Calderon, along with news outlets writing about this issue—from CNN to the San Francisco Chronicle—unfailingly state that Americans use 500 million plastic straws a day, many of them ending up in waterways and oceans. The 500 million figure is often attributed to the National Park Service; it in turn got it from the recycling company Eco-Cycle.

Eco-Cycle is unable to provide any data to back up this number, telling Reason that it was relying on the research of one Milo Cress. Cress—whose Be Straw Free Campaign is hosted on Eco-Cycle's website—tells Reason that he arrived at the 500 million straws a day figure from phone surveys he conducted of straw manufacturers in 2011, when he was just 9 years old.

Cress, who is now 16, says that the National Restaurant Association has endorsed his estimates in private correspondence. This may well be true, but the only references to the 500 million figure on the association's website again points back to the work done by Cress.

More important than how many straws Americans use each day is how many wind up in waterways. We don't know that figure either. The closest we have is the number of straws collected by the California Costal Commission during its annual Coastal Cleanup Day: a total of 835,425 straws and stirrers since 1988, or about 4.1 percent of debris collected.

Squishy moderates on the straw issue have pushed paper straws, which come compostable at only eight times the price. Eco-Cycle skews a bit more radical, with their "Be Straw Free" campaign—sponsored in part by reusable straw makers—that urges the adoption of glass or steel straws. Because we all know how good steel smelting is for the environment.

In any case, criminalizing unsolicited straws seems like a rather heavy-handed approach to the problem, especially since we don't actually know how big a problem it is. But don't take my word for that. Ask Milo Cress.

"If people are forced not to use straws, then they won't necessarily see that it's for the environment," he tells Reason. "They'll just think it's just another inconvenience imposed on them by government."

Comments 1 - 40 of 52       Last »     Search these comments

1   zzyzzx   2018 Jan 25, 10:42am  

#fuckcalifornia
2   georgeliberte   2018 Jan 25, 12:08pm  

I assume complimentary dildos will be excluded from the tax.
3   Ceffer   2018 Jan 25, 2:33pm  

They figure if you can afford the cocaine, you can afford the straw.
4   Tenpoundbass   2018 Jan 25, 2:49pm  

Well good Like sucking my liquid through that cross hatch sphincter on the plastic lid.
Who needs to shove a straw in there?
5   MisdemeanorRebel   2018 Jan 25, 4:38pm  

"What are you in for?"
"I offered a customer at Applebee's a straw for their soda."
6   NoYes   2018 Jan 25, 6:14pm  

Easy solution to avoid fine....waiter just says 'did I hear you correctly Sir/Mam that you wanted a plastic straw for your whatever?'
This is the 'last straw' from these wacko left wing worthless CA government idiots....remove them from office now. As Alice would say...“Off with their heads!”
7   FortWayne   2018 Jan 25, 6:35pm  

Did we get all world idiots into legislative in CA? Fucking insane
8   Strategist   2018 Jan 25, 8:54pm  

FortWayne says
Did we get all world idiots into legislative in CA? Fucking insane


Looks like it. California has gone insane.
9   WookieMan   2018 Jan 25, 9:14pm  

TL;DR

Who are they actually going to fine? The waiters themselves? This doesn't stand a chance in hell and seems like a ploy for said lawmaker to get some publicity. We all know the saying, there is no such thing as bad publicity.
10   Ceffer   2018 Jan 26, 12:45am  

FortWayne says
Did we get all world idiots into legislative in CA? Fucking insane


Yes.
11   mmmarvel   2018 Jan 26, 6:28am  

Must ... stop ... the ... stupidity ... no ... use ... can't ... fix ... stupid
12   FortWayne   2018 Jan 26, 7:39am  

WookieMan says
TL;DR

Who are they actually going to fine? The waiters themselves? This doesn't stand a chance in hell and seems like a ploy for said lawmaker to get some publicity. We all know the saying, there is no such thing as bad publicity.


I think it's a combination of 2 factors. One, those legislators are really stupid, and are appealing to their left wing voters who don't have any common sense to see how this will just get in a way instead of solving any problems.
13   Shaman   2018 Jan 26, 9:00am  

FortWayne says
Did we get all world idiots into legislative in CA?


Democraps in control forever, leaning more SJW every day. The stupid just rolls down from Sacramento in ever increasing waves.
14   RWSGFY   2018 Jan 26, 10:32am  

zzyzzx says
a waiter who serves a drink with an unrequested straw in it would face up to 6 months in jail and a fine of up to $1,000


So an illegal alien and convicted felon arleady deported at least dozen times who shoots a gun stolen from LEO and kills a young woman is allowed to walk free, but a waiter who serves a drink with an "unrequested straw" will face up to 6 month in a can and a fine to boot?

Sounds perfectly reasonable.
15   anonymous   2018 Jan 29, 9:23pm  

Ian Calderon you are the dumbest worthless FUCK on the complete planet earth, no wait universe!!! Your STUPID ASS NEEDS TO BE OUT OF OFFICE YOU WORTHLESS WASTE OF SPACE AND VALUABLE AIR YOU FUCK!!!!
16   RWSGFY   2018 Jun 21, 7:25pm  

anonymous says
Ian Calderon you are the dumbest worthless FUCK on the complete planet earth, no wait universe!!! Your STUPID ASS NEEDS TO BE OUT OF OFFICE YOU WORTHLESS WASTE OF SPACE AND VALUABLE AIR YOU FUCK!!!!


Amen.
17   MisdemeanorRebel   2018 Jun 21, 7:36pm  

How about enforcing the noise laws, the rooster laws, etc.?
18   MisterLefty   2018 Jun 22, 4:06am  

Only good service when needing to do lines.
19   marcus   2018 Jun 24, 5:47pm  

zzyzzx says
"If people are forced not to use straws, then they won't necessarily see that it's for the environment," he tells Reason. "They'll just think it's just another inconvenience imposed on them by government."


The marketplace would do it's thing and bring back paper straws (biodegradable) even if they cost a penny more each.

I wonder though. If it's that legit of a concern, why not just use peer pressure like they did with styrofoam. Although that only partially worked. I'm sure one of the reasons the typical
Trumpeter prefers dunkin donuts coffee to starbucks is the styrofoam.

Sorry to let you guys know this, but even Dunkin donuts is guilty of falling prey to virue signalling (sometimes a good thing).
http://money.cnn.com/2018/02/07/news/companies/dunkin-styrofoam-cups/index.html
20   Tenpoundbass   2018 Jun 24, 5:50pm  

marcus says
The marketplace would do it's thing and bring back paper straws (biodegradable) even if they cost a penny more each.


But the plastic lid is still OK?
21   marcus   2018 Jun 24, 6:03pm  

How okay something that's environmentally unfriendly is, should be inversely proportional to how low the cost of a good alternative (substitute) is.

#not_rocket_science
22   Tenpoundbass   2018 Jun 24, 6:06pm  

marcus says
How okay something that's environmentally unfriendly is, should be inversely proportional to how low the cost of a good alternative (substitute) is.


https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-06-05/the-fight-for-paper-straws-is-getting-fierce-in-new-york-bars
23   FortWayne   2018 Jun 24, 7:58pm  

Marcus even you have to admit, fining waiters for straws is retarded and not a solution to anything,

We hire too many people to fill diversity quotas instead of hiring for ability

marcus says
zzyzzx says
"If people are forced not to use straws, then they won't necessarily see that it's for the environment," he tells Reason. "They'll just think it's just another inconvenience imposed on them by government."


The marketplace would do it's thing and bring back paper straws (biodegradable) even if they cost a penny more each.

I wonder though. If it's that legit of a concern, why not just use peer pressure like they did with styrofoam. Although that only partially worked. I'm sure one of the reasons the typical
Trumpeter prefers dunkin donuts coffee to starbucks is the styrofoam.

Sorry to let you guys know this, but even Dunkin donuts is guilty of falling prey to virue signalling (sometimes a good thing).
http://money.cnn.com/2018/02/07/news/companies/dunkin-styrofoam-cups/index.html
24   marcus   2018 Jun 25, 5:55am  

FortWayne says
Marcus even you have to admit, fining waiters for straws is retarded and not a solution to anything,


If good biodegradable straws cost one or two cents more per straw than plastic straws, then businesses will be very very slow to convert. Such a law would be very effective in speeding up the process.

As for the question of affirmative action, I can see why you make the comparison, but it's very different and complicated in other ways. I would argue that government stepping in for a while in efforts to expedite the increase of diversity in the work place was worth it, but that it has to end at some point.

I think a better comparison might be made to global warming. If two decades from now even the Koch brothers descendants and all the purveyors of fossil fuels by then admit that investing sooner in sustainable forms of energy, even if economically disruptive would have been worth it in hindsight, they might be able to look back and say that having leaders decide on policies without being overly influenced by lobbyists and propagandists for big oil and coal would have been good.

The fact is that government does have a role of sometimes tweaking the way change occurs if it were left only to the marketplace. Fining people for using plastic straws is radical, but on the other hand it makes the decision of using slightly more expensive straws a no brainer. Ultimately the consumer pays that one or two cents more per straw.

I don't know how many sea animals lives are saved in the process, but I'm assuming that the people behind the proposals have done their homework. Here's an idea for infowars or Brietbart. Perhaps they can start a rumor than Al Gore is heavily invested in the biggest paper straw makers ?
25   lostand confused   2018 Jun 25, 6:29am  

Liberlas are now the tough on crime party-the crime of providing straws is now punishable by jail!
26   marcus   2018 Jun 25, 6:45am  

It's one guys proposal. It's not going to pass. It might wake some people up.

Interesting about dunkin donuts. Was it about the technology and cost coming down on Paper coffee cups, or did they do focus groups and decide the business they gain might be greater than the business they lost from old codgers that prefer dunkin donuts becasue you know, screw those libruls with their ideas about the environment.
27   lostand confused   2018 Jun 25, 6:46am  

The one guy is the elader of the democrat majority in the lwoer house.This leader is proposing jailing people for 6 months for offeringa straw.
28   lostand confused   2018 Jun 25, 5:08pm  

What happens if the straw giver is an illegal-how will a liberal deal with that?
29   RC2006   2018 Jun 25, 5:42pm  

lostand confused says
What happens if the straw giver is an illegal-how will a liberal deal with that?

The same thing when they steal peoples socials, cross border, drive with no license or insurance, use fake ID's, nothing.
30   MisdemeanorRebel   2018 Jun 25, 5:49pm  

marcus says
I'm sure one of the reasons the typical
Trumpeter prefers dunkin donuts coffee to starbucks is the styrofoam.


The coffee doesn't taste like it was left on the burner for hours.

That, and for far cheaper, they put the cream and sugar in for you.

And no crap about venti or grande and shit.

AND it doesn't get cold in 15 minutes from shitty burn your fingers to freezing cold paper crap.

Finally, it's a franchise for many families, not just a faceless corporation.
31   HeadSet   2018 Jun 26, 6:55am  

South Korea, their recycling program is mandatory and getting more stringent by the month.

Not a bad idea, and it will happen here. But I would like to add to the program a Bill Clinton style 'Welfare to Work" program where people on the dole are used to sort trash and do related recycling work.
34   Onvacation   2022 Aug 15, 7:02am  

marcus says

Al Gore is heavily invested in the biggest paper straw makers ?

Actually, he invested in the little plastic covers that go over the paper straws. There is no money in paper.
35   Eric Holder   2022 Aug 15, 10:31am  

Looks like In-n-Out has ditched paper straws and is back to dispensing plastic ones. Happened some time over the last month.
36   Ceffer   2022 Aug 15, 10:33am  

I'm so glad Covid fraud absurdity vanquished so many of other petty Orwellian absurdities. I guess there is only so much room for fiat money supported absurdities.
37   FarmersWon   2022 Aug 15, 10:52am  

California bans expensive washing of dirty “French laundry” by politicians.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/18/us/newsom-california-covid-french-laundry.html
38   FortwayeAsFuckJoeBiden   2022 Aug 15, 8:13pm  

any of you old enough to remember when straws weren’t a thing that everyone required? was only a fast food drive thru thing
39   Patrick   2022 Aug 15, 8:35pm  

Eric Holder says

Looks like In-n-Out has ditched paper straws and is back to dispensing plastic ones. Happened some time over the last month.


They seem more based than most fast food places.
40   AD   2022 Aug 15, 10:46pm  

zzyzzx says

California Considers $1,000 Fine for Waiters Offering Unsolicited Plastic Straws


And Governor Newsome advertised California living in Florida, albeit those ads were in Miami. LMAO

.

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