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SALT LAKE CITY — A state lawmaker is explaining his bill to keep cities in Utah from banning plastic bags.
Spanish Fork Representative Mike McKell says those bans are government intrusion.
“If a company wants to use a reusable bag, that’s their option,” he said on Fox and Friends Wednesday morning. “Let’s let companies thrive. we hit them hard enough with taxes and policies we create. Let’s have some consistency in the market, and let those companies make those decisions.”
Park City and Moab passed ordinances outlawing plastic bags at certain stores. Logan is thinking about it.
But McKell says it’s anti-business.
“If we are going to have one city with a ban and another that doesn’t, that creates inconsistency in the marketplace,” he said.
He explained how Trader Joe’s decided to do it by themselves. “That’s something they decided to do and their customers decide to do. We don’t need government to tell us how to live.”
Meanwhile, a Park City grocery store says it will ban plastic bags no matter what the Utah legislature decides to do. The owner of The Market at Park City told The Park Record that people and tourists still ask for plastic bags, but he thinks banning them is the right thing to do.
People can buy paper bags for 10 cents each if they don’t bring in their own reusable bags at that store.
Another legislator, Sen. Jani Iwamoto, has argued in favor of a plastic bag ban. Her bill to do so failed to gain momentum in 2018, but she revised it and filed it again in the 2019 session.