Using foam containers may come at price
Commissioners consider city-wide polystyrene ban
HOLLYWOOD — Those polystyrene containers used by restaurants for decades may be getting the heave-ho in Hollywood.
A citywide ban would mean customers could be fined just for walking out of a restaurant or coffee shop with a cup or takeout container made of the wrong stuff.
Hollywood can’t fine the business because of a state law passed last year that prohibits cities from banning polystyrene foam from restaurants, convenience stores and grocery stores.
But they can ban it from public places throughout the entire city, including the beach, parks, sidewalks and food truck events.
City commissioners already gave tentative approval to a ban in September and debated the issue again Wednesday. They are expected to take a final vote as soon as November.
Bob Ferro, owner of Nicks restaurant on the beach, was dumbfounded to learn the restaurants wouldn’t be fined, but the customers would.
“That’s so asinine,” he said. “Which one of the bright commissioners came up that? I don’t want my customer getting a ticket for having a Styrofoam cup.”
Ferro says he plans to stop using Styrofoam if the ban goes through.
Hasan Kochan, who owns Istanbul Restaurant at the beach, says he too would stop using Styrofoam, even though it’s much cheaper.
“I’m not going to use it if my customers are going to be fined,” he said.
Polystyrene, said by experts to take hundreds of years to decompose, has also been banned by Seattle, San Francisco and Miami Beach — well before Florida ruled