Plastic bag ban
Punished by politicians
Predictably, Mayor Billy Kenoi has joined the grotesquely obese Hawaii County Council in punishing the whole classroom with his support for Bill 17 Draft 2, popularly known as the bag ban, because he prefers to proclaim dicta in a “clean, healthy and safe” environment. We shall see how “clean, healthy and safe” the populace remains after implementation of this folly.
As for my wife and I, we are already preparing for this return to newspaper-wrapped fish and other pre-World War II microbe-friendly food transportation methods.
Despite the fact we live in Kohala (North Kohala to County Council members), we are ready to adjust to not making any purchases of meat, fish or other sea food which would require us to transport such more than two miles to or from our residence, for example. Likewise, we will be compelled to punish further the restaurants we no longer patronize because of the smoking ban by not purchasing any take-out, since neither of us wants a lap full of saimin broth or loco moco gravy. We shall sorely miss roadside barbecue and the produce stands — another small death for free enterprise.
Notorious for impulse purchases, we will discipline ourselves to resist that temptation, especially with small item purchases, as we, like most people here, excepting Mormons and Muslims, have no pockets to carry such stuff around. Neither of us has any inclination to begin wearing field jackets in the tropics.
I reckon we could keep and rinse our acquired small-purchase plastic bags for repeated us as suggested, risking any number of possible microbial infections as something unpredictable fouls our very sustenance. But perhaps our resentment of all we must already sacrifice for the statesmanlike solons of Hilo renders us exasperated at the prospect of actually working for nothing. We truly cannot afford an illegal alien to do our dirty work for us.
And does Pete Hoffmann’s wife like this plan?
I likewise reckon it’s up to all those big spenders among the environmental militants to take up the slack they’ve created by further discouraging consumer courtesy as small business interests ubiquitously bankrupt in a flagging economy. They’ve left no mystery as to how they feel about free markets.
Maybe some of the bags we need to be rid of are those who compose the County Council. Just a thought.
Tom Munden
Kapaau