The City Council of Fort Collins just passed its first vote forcing grocery stores to charge their customers 10 cents per disposable bag. There will be a second and final vote in two weeks. Residents and grocery stores are angry and hope to change that second vote.
Fort Collins residents are smart, educated and trainable. So why do five members of the City Council feel they have to punitively force us to pay for grocery bags and then force grocery stores to set up digital systems and personnel procedures to comply?
These five council members based their decision on success reported by the City of Breckenridge, stating that there has been a 50 percent reduction of disposable bags in the town landfill. How is this measured?
The council members mentioned the need to include all retail stores. Why are they starting with grocery stores? Is it because they fear more "push back" by hardware, clothing, office supply stores? Or is it because grocery stores would be more compliant and therefore an easier target?
It sounds like our City Council wants to simply go along with "other cities" because their constituents think government must tell us what we can and cannot do. If they really wanted to reduce garbage, they would support Mayor Karen Weitkunat's and Councilman Wade Troxell's suggestion to continue educating our residents to re-use their own bags. After all, to change behavior isn't positive education much more effective than a punitive tax, oops, I mean fee.