Luchessi Park, Plastic bag floating in the lake.

Plastic bag ban debate continues

Petaluma is on the verge of throwing out the use of plastic carryout bags by grocers and retailers for good.

City Manager John Brown said the City Council will have two options before them at Monday's meeting: join the county's plastic ban or draft legislation specific to Petaluma that outlaws plastic bags.

"There are some cities that have said they want to do it themselves, and other cities that said they want the county to handle it for them," said Brown. "Now it's the council's time to decide."

Banning plastic carryout bags from grocery and retail stores has been a goal of the Petaluma City Council for quite some time. It's a move that has become increasingly popular across the county, as many cities join the effort to keep plastic bags out of landfills and the environment.

Some bans are citywide, others countywide. Many bans also carry a mandatory 5- to 10-cent fee charged to the customer for using paper bags, all in an effort to encourage customers to purchase reusable shopping bags.

Sonoma County's proposed ban on single-use plastic bags - which was developed by the Sonoma County Waste Management Agency and includes a 10-cent fee for paper bags - has hit some snags along the way. First, several cities, including Petaluma, worried that the agency did not have the authority to draft such legislation and were afraid that the ban would not survive a lawsuit if it were challenged in court by plastic bag suppliers, which often occurs after a ban is enacted. Earlier this year, San Francisco passed a plastic bag ban ordinance that is currently being challenged in court by the Save the Plastic Bag Coalition.

Then, Santa Rosa said it did not want the county enforcing laws in the city, and threatened to veto the ordinance, which - because it is run through the county waste agency - requires a unanimous vote of all nine Sonoma County cities and the county to pass.

To address these issues, the waste management agency drafted two pieces of legislation. The first gives the waste management agency the authority to write laws that require enforcement, making a plastic bag ban legally enforceable throughout the county. The second allows cities to opt out of any future waste management agency legislation, without their decision effecting the passage of new laws that other cities may support.

Petaluma will decide if it wants to agree to these two county waste management agency changes Monday.

Henry Mikus, executive director of the county waste management agency, said that Sonoma, Sebastopol, Cotati, Windsor, Healdsburg and the unincorporated county have already agreed to the changes, moving the county one step closer to outlawing single-use plastic bags.

"The first step is for all the nine cities and the county to approve the changes to the way the Sonoma County Waste Management Agency conducts business," said Mikus. "Then, cities like Santa Rosa that want to do their own laws won't hamper other smaller cities that may not be able to afford creating and enforcing these laws."

In July, the city council unanimously agreed that banning plastic bags from grocery and retail stores in the city made sense. The discussion on how to achieve such a ban will continue at the Dec. 2 Petaluma City Council meeting in council chambers at 11 English St. Open session starts at 7 p.m.

(Contact Janelle Wetzstein at janelle.wetzstein@arguscourier.com)

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