Rodriguez: California Senate approves pointless bill to micromanage straws

On Monday, the California state Senate voted 25-12 in support of a proposal to prohibit full-service restaurants, but not fast-food restaurants, from providing plastic straws to customers, unless the customer asks for one.

As far as government overreaches go, it's more of an annoyance than anything.

It doesn't prohibit restaurants from handing out straws, but it regulates how they are handed out.

It's a proposal that hints at future proposals to outright ban plastic straws without actually doing it.

Instead of just doing what it hints at doing, it just annoys people.

It's a government overreach without the decency of just being what it's supposed to be, which is a plastic straw ban.

The best that can be said about it is that it's less absurd than when it was first introduced.

When originally presented, Assembly Bill 1884, introduced by Assemblyman Ian Calderon, D-Whittier, included language deeming violators “guilty of a misdemeanor with each offense punishable by a fine of not less than $25 or more than $1,000, or by imprisonment in the county jail for a term not exceeding 6 months, or by both.”

It has since been watered down to cut out the misdemeanor and threat of jail time, and the fines have been limited to $25 per day, with a cap of $300 per year.

It's still an absurd proposal, but it's less absurd than it used to be. And that's all it has going for it.

While Calderon and proponents like state Sen. Henry Stern, D-Canoga Park, have made a point of stressing the harms of plastic straws on the environment, this proposal will do basically nothing to significantly aid the environment.

If they want a plastic straw ban to help the turtles, they should have proposed one. At least we'd have a more honest and direct conversation about the future of straws.

Instead, California has the distinction of being a state with an absurd bill that does nothing but micromanage how straws are dispensed at certain establishments.

Well done, California. Well done.

Sal Rodriguez is an editorial writer for the Southern California News Group.

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