A small army of New York City bodega and deli owners are gearing up to challenge the state’s plastic bag ban on the eve of its March 1 implementation, The Post has learned.
On Friday, lawyers for more than 14,000 store proprietors will ask an Albany judge for a temporary restraining order to delay a statewide ban on thin plastic bags, like those provided in grocery stores.
The group, which plans to follow their court hearing with a lawsuit against the state, will claim state authorities failed to reach out to largely Latino-, Korean- and Arab-owned small businesses when considering the ban, sources said.
They will say the ban disproportionately harms immigrant-owned businesses from low-income neighborhoods that cannot comply with it because they are unable to acquire often costlier alternative bags, including paper and thick reusable plastic bags, sources said.
The Empire State banned single-use plastic bags in March 2019 in an effort to protect wildlife in the state, where more than 23 billion plastic bags are used a year, according to the state Department of Environmental Conservation.
Under the law, retailers will be allowed to offer paper bags, but will have to charge as much as 5 cents apiece for them in areas like NYC — a tax that will go to local and state coffers, including NY’s Environmental Protection Fund. Customers can also bring their own reusable bags made of thicker plastic material, or buy them from groceries that provide them.
But many grocers, including large ones, have complained that they’re not ready to do away with plastic amid concerns of a nationwide paper bag shortage as more municipalities banish plastic.
“It’s going to be chaos,” said Francisco Marte of Bronx-based Green Earth Grocery, which will be named a plaintiff in Friday’s lawsuit. “We are in favor of the reusable bags, but there has been no education to the consumers or to the businesses,” he said.
Marte, for example, says he could only land a supply of small paper bags — enough to hold a coffee and a buttered roll — when he approached his supplier for larger bags.
“I don’t have any paper bags that are bigger now even though I’ve had bigger bags in the past,” Marte said. “I just can’t get them.”
The Bodega & Small Business Association, which represents 14,000 delis and bodegas in the city, will also be a plaintiff in the suit, which is expected to argue that the DEC overreached in writing the regulations. The suit will likely say that the DEC is an agency and not a legislative body — and does not have the power to make laws, sources said.
Long Island-based plastic bag maker Poly-Pak is another plaintiff, because its thick bags aren’t the right size to comply with the ban.
The Bodega & Small Business Association is also concerned about a wrinkle in the law that exempts recipients of public assistance from paying the 5 cent fee for paper bags. This is already leading to resentment by bodega customers who do not benefit from government aid, Marte told The Post.
“The people who will pay the 5 cents are incensed and have asked why they should support customers who don’t work,” Marte said. “The people who write these laws don’t face the customers who are dealing with this reality.”
In a statement to The Post, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation said, “This frivolous and nonsensical suit seeks to undermine the State’s nearly year-long campaign to educate New Yorkers — consumers and retailers — about this long-awaited and widely supported law to reduce the scourge of plastic bag waste in our communities and our environment. DEC and the State will vigorously oppose this misguided litigation and will defend the law and DEC’s regulations.”