Three Ocean Beach Restaurants Join Campaign Against Plastic

Three restaurants in Ocean Beach have joined a city-wide campaign against plastic containers.

The Lazy Hummingbird Cafe, Raglan Public House and Wonderland Ocean Pub are part of the campaign that has at the moment 16 San Diego restaurants pledging to eliminate plastic containers in exchange for paper.  Each one will have a special sticker outside their store to show they have made the switch.

The other restaurants include:

• Bareback Grill and Bayside Landing in Pacific Beach;
• The Burger Lounge chain;
• Queenstown Public House in Little Italy; and
• Snooze A.M. Eatery in Del Mar and Hillcrest.

It’s all part of the Surfrider Foundation’s Ocean Friendly Restaurants Campaign, in which the organization works with eateries to lower beach pollution by voluntarily reducing the use of plastic food service items. San Diego City Council President Sherri Lightner supports the project and stated:

“This is an important project that will help our beaches and bays.”

Lightner proposed an ordinance to reduce the number of plastic bags used by stores in San Diego, which is currently undergoing an environmental review.

News source: KUSI

The Statewide Ban vs the Referendum

Organizations such as Surfrider Foundation have been pushing vigorously for a statewide ban. They know about plastic. Surfrider participates in 45 county beach clean-ups per year, and more than 50 percent of the trash collected is plastic, a representative of Surfrider told the OB Town Council back in April.

Meanwhile, the statewide ban that was signed into law by Gov. Jerry Brown in September of 2014 is being challenged by a repeal referendum on the ballot in November of 2016. California was going to be the very first state in the country to ban the use of plastic bags at supermarkets and retail stores, and if it hadn’t been for referendum, plastic would start to be phased out, beginning in July.

A Local Ordinance?

According to Tony de Garate over at the Beacon:

With the statewide ban in doubt, the San Diego City Council has renewed development of a local ordinance, which should be ready for consideration in August. Five of the nine city councilmembers are on record in support of the ban ….

The city was developing a plastic bag ordinance in 2013, when Faulconer was still the District 2 city councilmember. … But after becoming mayor in February of 2014, Faulconer halted progress on the ordinance, saying the city should defer to the parallel state effort and save taxpayer money. …

Councilmember Lorie Zapf – presenting the coast and District 2, has yet to commit to supporting the ban, and is one of the four on the Council whose votes are in question.