Now New York City is considering a plastic straw ban.
On Wednesday, three Democrats on city council—Rafael Espinal of Brooklyn, Helen Rosenthal of Manhattan, and Barry Grodenchik of Queens—introduced a bill that would prohibit restaurants, bars, and other food service businesses from giving customers single-use plastic straws.
Businesses would be fined $100 for the first violation, $200 for second, and $400 for any violations thereafter. A medical exception would allow restaurateurs to hand out straws to anyone with a disability—including, oddly, people whose disabilities do not have any effect on how they drink their beverages. Everyone else would have to suck it up.
Espinal, along with John Calvelli of the Wildlife Conservation Society and Adrian Grenier of HBO’s Entourage, try to justify the proposal in a New York Daily News op-ed, arguing that plastic straws are both an environmental menace and easily replaceable.
Read the rest at Reason.com.
The Vain Struggle to Curb Congressional Stock Trading
In the halls of the U.S. Capitol, where lawmakers craft policies that shape the nation's economy, a persistent ethical dilemma looms: the ability of members of Congress to trade stocks while possessing privileged, non-public information. This practice raises serious...
