First they came for your bags and your straws, Save Jerseyans.
Now? If one South Jersey Democrat legislator gets his way? His bill which “[p]rohibits food service businesses from providing single-use plastic utensils and condiments to customers, except upon request, and requires certain food service businesses to provide reusable, washable utensils to customers eating on site” will soon be the law of the land across New Jersey. So goodbye plastic forks and ketchup packets!
The fines will also be brutal for the Garden State’s thousands of food service small businesses.
A5331 sponsored by Burlington County’s Herb Conway provides that “[a]ny covered food service business that violates the provisions of section 2 of this act shall be liable to a civil penalty of $1,000 for the first offense, $2,500 for the second offense, and $5,000 for the third and each subsequent offense.” Each new day, by the way, would represent a new and separate violation.
Restaurants with capacity for 50 or more customers will have an additional mandate to provide diners with “reusable, washable utensils that may be used thereby while consuming meals on the premises, and which are to be returned to the food service business, upon completion of the on-site meal, for the purposes of cleaning and reuse,” as explained by the legislation’s explanatory statement.
Conway’s bill was referred to the Assembly Environment and Solid Waste Committee last Thursday.
