At last night's Culver City Council meeting, the councilmembers unanimously voted to introduce a ban on single-use carryout bags. The ordinance aims to ban the use of single-use plastic carryout bags and require retailers to charge customers a minimum of 10 cents for any single-use paper bags.

This "introduction" of the ordinance is the second step -- after the public hearings in April -- toward its adoption. The ordinance will return to the council at the "next available opportunity" for a final reading and final vote to put it into effect.

The ordinance will affect approximately 72 retailers in Culver City. And to allow sufficient time for businesses to use up their existing inventory of bags and to adjust to the requirements of the ordinance, its implementation will be phased in. Larger stores will be given six months from the effective date of the proposed ordinance, and smaller stores will be given twelve months from the effective date of the ordinance's adoption.

The ban doesn't seem to be too controversial -- at least if the readers of this site are any indication. Comments on the story I wrote about the potential ban were overall very supportive of the move.