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NYPRESS.COM • THE LARGEST PAPER ON THE EAST SIDE • AUGUST 29, 2013
Charging for Plastic Upper East Siders debate proposed tax on plastic bags By Adam Janos
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ew Yorkers produce about 100.000 tons of plastic bag trash a year -- taking an estimated 1,000 years to fully biodegrade. Now, City Council members Brad Lander (D – Brooklyn) and Margaret Chin (D – Lower Manhattan) have introduced legislation that – if passed – would mandate stores charge a ten-cent minimum on all plastic bags consumers buy. “This legislation represents a real, progressive step toward an environmentally conscious New York City,” Chin said. “This bill incentivizes consumers to bring their own reusable bags and think twice before reaching for paper or plastic ones.”
But in a city as diverse as New York, opinions are – predictably – split. “It is what it is,” Kenneth Jackson, manager at the Gourmet Garage on Park Avenue and East 96th Street, says. “I think it’s bad for business… but people do need to recycle.” Still, Jackson thinks that, “Ten cents? That’s crazy.” Upper East Sider Brenna McCarthy supports the mandate. Walking home cradling two bottles of cranberry juice (single-bagged) in her arms, McCarthy states that she usually carries a reusable bag, but that “if it was a mandatory charge, I’d [always] bring my own bag.” Likewise, Yuan Hu, a Chinese immigrant who has lived on the Upper East Side for a year, doesn’t understand why the ban isn’t already in place. “That’s how I used to do it in my country,” Hu says. “In Beijing, people pay. It’s pollution for the whole world.” Meanwhile, some residents of the
How Safe is Our Pre-Cut Produce? A renewed focus on bodegas following a Hep A scare By Alissa Fleck
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he recent Hepatitis A exposure at the Westside Market at 97th and Broadway had consumers all over the city reeling — and wondering if they can trust their local grocer. The incident came as a result of the disease potentially being spread from an
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ALSO INSIDE OUR LACK OF COMMUNITY GARDENS P.4
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Nominate and vote for your favorite doorman (or super or porter) GO TO: buildingworkerawards.com TO VOTE
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infected food preparer to consumers of presliced produce. The Department of Health sent out a release warning consumers who had made possible contact with these products to get vaccinated as soon as possible. This outbreak also comes on the heels of a similar scare earlier this spring at Alta, a restaurant in downtown Manhattan. We took to the Upper West Side neighborhood to see how local bodegas keep their pre-packaged food safe and what the inspection process looks like. Pre-packaged food, with a substantially higher markup than the unprepared
Tickets to Cinderlla given away weekly
DO ENDORSEMENTS MATTER? P.14