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Starting Jan. 1, plastic straws will only be legally available upon request at California full service restaurants. Governor Jerry Brown signed the new legislation, AB-1884, today. However, the law excludes the biggest users of plastic straws: fast food restaurants, cafes, delicatessens and takeaway restaurants.
Violations of the law, namely serving plastic straws by default, would result in a fine after two warnings. It's $ 25 a day that the full-service restaurant is violating, with fines capped at $ 300.
In San Francisco, new state legislation comes after (and will soon become useless) a local law totally banning plastic straws all over the city, including places where plastic straws are most commonly used, such as bars and cafes. This city law is to come into effect on July 1, 2019.
Plastic straws, cited as a major source of waste, have been the target of recent interdiction efforts in California and elsewhere. Major retailers such as Starbucks have their own plans to phase it out, while some disability advocates point to the burden that the straw ban can place on people with disabilities.
In light of the new state law, Golden Gate Restaurant Association director Gwyneth Borden imagines that full-service Californian restaurants – which are not often used as plastic straws – will add signs to tables or notes indicating the demand. Meanwhile, Borden highlights the ever-increasing costs of alternatives to plastic straw, such as the sturdy paper straws, which have recently been banned.
"There is a huge backlog of paper straws – there is no supply chain [for non-plastic straws] to meet the new demand, "she says. "It would be useful for our elected representatives to work with the suppliers – in this case, it is always the responsibility of the end user at the restaurant."
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