Folks in Los Angeles will eventually have to pay to carry their groceries home, courtesy of the nanny state. The LA City Council voted Tuesday not only to ban plastic bags, but to require that stores charge 25 cents for paper bags to carry groceries. The ban doesn’t actually take place until 2010, giving stores plenty of time to use up their current supply of plastic bags.

The state of California is considering a similar bill banning plastic bags, which would take effect in 2012, and charge “at least” 15 cents per paper bag. I’m guessing this would be added onto the city’s fee, charging customers “at least” 40 cents per bag.

For a family the size of mine, at that price, buying paper bags would add around 15-20 dollars onto our monthly grocery bill. Of course, there is always the option of bringing your own bag, which most stores are already selling right by the check-out lane. Where I live, decent ones go for about five dollars each, which would halve the yearly cost of the added fee for buying food. Being frugal, I myself would use recycled material and my handy sewing machine to whip up my own. Most families these days don’t own a sewing machine or have the foggiest notion how to sew though. When considering low-income families, who are already struggling to put food on the table, it doesn’t matter whether they buy paper, buy cloth, or buy a machine to sew their own, it’s taking money from their budget that could actually be spent feeding them. For a state that’s so terribly concerned about the poor and the homeless, they sure do pass a lot of stupid laws that hurt them.

Not surprisingly, the stores will be allowed to keep only 3 percent of the paper bag fee they are required to charge, although I’m sure they will still be the ones buying the bags to be used. Three percent will go to the state, and the city will keep the rest to fund “an education campaign.” Education on what? Sounds to me like the City Council could use an education campaign on the negative effects of the nanny state- maybe Drew Carey could teach it.

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