Boycott Shopping Bag Fee

I am dismayed that effective 10/1/12, San Francisco imposed a mandatory bag fee of 10c per bag on all stores, which include your favorite such as Macy's, Banana Republic, Gap, Ann Taylor, etc. This 10c will go up to 25c in 7/2014. And effective 10/1/2013, all restaurants will have to do the same with take-out food.

The law was voted 10-to-0 by the board of supervisors, except Supervisor David Campos who did not vote. Am I the only one who was sane here?

I don't begrudge this law if it applies to grocery shopping only, which we do regularly. This is chore we do regularly and need not be fancy. I have plenty of recycled bags and have been doing it before the "law" was imposed. Now I resent having to carry them. I am angry for -- who is going to carry a "recycled bag" to shop at Macy's, Bloomingdale? Give me a break here. Why do we shop? We shop for fun! Don't we want our purchases be wrapped and bagged nicely? Isn't that part of customer service? Now we are to bring a recycle bag in to bag our "stuff" away? I might as well shut my wallet! No sales tax for you, San Francisco!

I went to Vera Bradley in SF Mall -- my favorite shop and chatted with the lady there. She said recently for her son's special occasion, she bought a dress from Bloomingdale next door for $400. The sales clerk asked "bag or no bag?" She said "I want bag! Of course!" And has to pay 10c to have her "stuff" bagged away. What an insult! Is that how we want our shopping experience be like from now on?

San Francisco gets 1.5% (County 0.25% + District 1.25%) of the 8.5% sales tax we paid.
To boycott this SF bag fee and to get our lives back, we need to do:

1) Tell our friends and families to not shop in SF.
2) Tell the supervisors they have gone too far.
3) Tell the merchants we do not like it. We want our purchases be nicely wrapped and bagged, no question asked -- just the way it was before.
3) Tell the merchants to tell the supervisors that this "law" will not fly and is turning customers away.
5) Shut our wallets -- so that SF does not get to collect its share of the sales tax.
6) Take our shopping elsewhere, such as North Bay; Petaluma, Corte Madera, Sonoma and inland gold counties, such as Murphy. Corte Madera has 2 big and brand new shopping malls with all your favorites such as Macys, Banana Republic, Ann Taylor, Restoration Hardware. They are -- nice! And the city council hate the ban. Make a day trip out of it. Tweet, facebook your good finds.
7) Stay away from these cities that are black-listed: Aptos, Berkeley, Capitola, Carmel, Cupertino, Menlo Park, Millbrae, San Jose, South San Francisco. They can keep their bags. No sales tax for them either.
8) Shop online, so that you don't have to deal with this "bag or no bag?" insult.
9) Do no donate to environmental / wildlife non-profits. We don't know which organizations they in turn support that might come back to bite us. If you were so inclined to donate, donate to social causes such as  Doctors Without Borders, UNICEF, Wounded Warriors, Disabled Veterans. 
10) Write to supervisors / council members of other cities, counties, and states legislators that this "expanded" ban and the fee are killing businesses and local economy
11) Ask your local and state legislators to reduce budgets for the environmental non-profits. The Federal Stimulus money has been a feast for them. It is time to cut back and bring back some senses of sensibilities. 


Join me in buying 1000 plastic bags from Amazon.com for $19.99. Never run out of trash bags. If we have to help ourselves with plastic bags, we will!