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Westneat Gets it Wrong on Bag Fee
[Editor's Note: Erica originally posted this around Noon today. We're moving it back to the top because of the lively comments thread.]
Seattle Times columnist Danny Westneat wrote a piece yesterday about a food bank whose leaders are opposing a proposed 20-cent fee on disposable bags because they feel it would place an unfair burden on their clients. Westneat talked to the director of the Central Area Motivation Program (CAMP), who told him that when her group handed out hundreds of canvas bags to clients, few people brought them back: Evidence, he argues, that food-bank clients—who lack the wherewithal to hang on to reusable bags—will end up bearing the brunt of the tax.
Sounds like a good case. The only problem: Food banks are explicitly exempted from the tax .
According to the legislation, the fee applies only to "grocery stores, drug stores, and convenience stores."
Additionally, the legislation authorizes the director of Seattle Public Utilities to provide reusable shopping bags to the public free of charge. And it even includes provisions to minimize the impact on food banks in the event that the fee is much more successful than anticipated, and results in a dramatic reduction in bag donations to food banks (as well as other provisions to provide bags free to low-income customers who show up at grocery stores without reusable bags.)
Had Westneat mentioned this, his story would have read much differently. Far from being "quite the shake-up to the story of this campaign," CAMP's opposition simply looks misguided—particularly in light of the fact that virtually every other food bank and low-income group in town, including the Downtown Food Bank, the Downtown Emergency Service Center, the Low-Income Housing Institute, and Jewish Family Service, support the fee.
But that doesn't make for as sexy a story.
Seattle Times columnist Danny Westneat wrote a piece yesterday about a food bank whose leaders are opposing a proposed 20-cent fee on disposable bags because they feel it would place an unfair burden on their clients. Westneat talked to the director of the Central Area Motivation Program (CAMP), who told him that when her group handed out hundreds of canvas bags to clients, few people brought them back: Evidence, he argues, that food-bank clients—who lack the wherewithal to hang on to reusable bags—will end up bearing the brunt of the tax.
Sounds like a good case. The only problem: Food banks are explicitly exempted from the tax .
According to the legislation, the fee applies only to "grocery stores, drug stores, and convenience stores."
Additionally, the legislation authorizes the director of Seattle Public Utilities to provide reusable shopping bags to the public free of charge. And it even includes provisions to minimize the impact on food banks in the event that the fee is much more successful than anticipated, and results in a dramatic reduction in bag donations to food banks (as well as other provisions to provide bags free to low-income customers who show up at grocery stores without reusable bags.)
Had Westneat mentioned this, his story would have read much differently. Far from being "quite the shake-up to the story of this campaign," CAMP's opposition simply looks misguided—particularly in light of the fact that virtually every other food bank and low-income group in town, including the Downtown Food Bank, the Downtown Emergency Service Center, the Low-Income Housing Institute, and Jewish Family Service, support the fee.
But that doesn't make for as sexy a story.
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