After straw ban, California builds a non-plastic future
Kaleigh Laurino keeps an eye on her drink when she meets up with friends at a bar — not because she fears that someone might spike her cocktail, but because she doesn’t want her reusable stainless-steel straw cleared away yet again with the empty glasses.
“My friends are like, are you serious?” said Laurino, 26, a content specialist from Long Beach. But Laurino, who has long been serious about ditching single-use plastics — even before a restriction on their use became California law in January — now carries a small pouch with her that holds a reusable straw and small, bristled cleaning brush.
Ever since California became the first state to bar full-service restaurants from automatically giving out single-use plastic straws, many Californians have been bracing for its impact. And some have definitely not been pleased to find out they have to specifically ask for one if they want to sip their drink through a straw.
Madison Mersola, who works as a server at the Open Sesame restaurant in the Belmont Shore neighborhood of Long Beach, said the early days of the new law were rocky, especially since the restaurant decided to eliminate straws, not just reserve them for people who asked for them. Mersola said she supported the ban on single-use straws — “I saw that terrible video that went around with the straw in the turtle’s nose” — but it wasn’t a view always shared by the people she was serving.
https://www.latimes.com/home/la-hm-california-straw-ban-update-20190409-story.html