If you’re in the plastic straw business, your company’s stock may have just gone down a tick.
With Governor Brown signing the bill into law that prohibits all dine-in restaurants in California from automatically giving customers plastic straws, there is likely to be a big drop off in the number of plastic straws you sell in California.
The news is not all bad for you. Customers can still ask for plastic straws at the restaurants and get them. And the law does not apply to fast food places, just dine in restaurants.
And the penalty to restaurants if they don’t follow the plastic straw ban law is not exactly a harsh one.
Restaurants found to have automatically provided plastic straws to customers would receive notices from the state for the first two violations; subsequent violations would be subject to fines of $25 per day up to a limit of $300 a year.
But most restaurants will probably comply and the number of plastic straws used and sold in California will go down.
Supporters say whatever inconvenience or disagreements there are, most people will see the benefits of reducing plastic straws from getting into streams and the ocean.
But if you are a plastic straw sales person, there will still be the arts and crafts business for you and all the kids who love to use plastic straws to make things.
Until that is, someone in Sacramento decides to ban those too.
(Photo credit Getty Images)