City of Huntington Beach Plastic Bag Ban Repeal

After an attempt by a local real estate agent to gather over 10,000 signatures to repeal the bag ban in Huntington Beach failed by 9,000 signatures, Council Member Dave Sullivan placed the repeal on the agenda for the April 21st meeting. This gave the Huntington Beach/Seal Beach Chapter Executive Committee less than a week  to quickly assemble, drop everything and prevent this repeal from happening. The goal of Councilman Sullivan, as well as Mayor Matthew Harper and Councilman Joe Carchio, was to repeal the ban and then place it on the ballot in November. According to the three proponents of the repeal, the 10 cent fee for paper bags was causing an undue hardship on the consumer. There was a significant amount of misguided information from the opposition during this debate, the 8th that has taken place in Huntington Beach over the plastic bag ban, and after over 56 speakers, supporters of the bag ban stated that the cost was too high on the environment for plastic bags to be used in Huntington Beach. Since reusable bags are so readily available and both meat and produce bags are still available in all grocery retailers, the majority of council saw no reason for plastic bags to be used in large retail stores. In fact, it was argued that the citizens already had voted on this issue. In the last election, materials were mailed to Huntington Beach residents stating the position of each candidate on the bag ban. Councilwoman Jill Hardy and Councilman Jim Katapodis both supported the bag ban and received the most amount of votes, electing them to office. In the end, Mayor Pro tem Joe Shaw, Council members Connie Boardman, Jill Hardy, and Jim Katapodis all voted no on the repeal, bringing Huntington Beach closer to becoming a more sustainable city.