Posted on 01/25/2018 10:33:36 AM PST by SeekAndFind
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.
(Excerpt) Read more at reason.com ...
Kaliporniastan strikes yet again. It’s a wonder there’s any intelligent life left there.
Waiter? Not waitresses too? This proposed law is so sexist.
Yeah, we need to cut back on straw usage. But come on ... $1k fine?! And the left call Trump “nazi”?!
So many jokes...
Straw regulations? No wonder residents are baling.
Sorry, Can’t give you a straw but here is the plastic applicator my tampon was in.
I loved my city, too, and visited at last once a month until it went fag and rogue.
Left in 1965.
Foretunately, most of my family I actually cared about are no longer alive.
California is industrial-strength stupidity.
California has become nucking futz!
Is it time to set up border checkpoints and a visa program?
I agree there is not much freedom left in California. It is turning in the combination 3rd World & Orwellian society.
Why not just charge $1000.00 per straw? That would stop those evil straw users!
It’s California so...
If it saves the life of even one child, it will be worth it...
...and then be beaten for about ten additional minutes.
Very unlikely.
Most of them, particularly fagtown, as a rule don't wipe at all; haven't for decades!
Interesting entertainment...watching California thoroughly screw itself...
Fascist Oligarchy?
YGBSM
I gave a straw to a kid with his chocolate milk.
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