The Denver City Council because Mayor Michael Hancock is concerned about the effect a fee could have on the poor. The mayor’s office has indicated he won’t support a fee of any kind.
This is regrettable not only because such fees have been shown to significantly reduce the number of bags shoppers use — and thus significantly reduce the number of bags that litter public spaces — but also because we believe the mayor’s concerns are unfounded.
The ordinance, proposed by Councilwoman Debbie Ortega, would have imposed a 5-cent fee on shopping bags and specifically allowed the city to use some of the 3 cents it kept from the fee to purchase reusable shopping bags for the poor.
Ortega told us the plan was for a non-profit to front the costs for 200,000 shopping bags to be given away to low-income households, twice as many as were given away in Washington, D.C., when that city adopted a bag fee.
The fee would provide an ample amount of revenue to give bags away to the poor and elderly. We think the mayor should reconsider his decision.
