Recommendation to direct City Manager to provide an update on the implementation of the Long Beach ban on single-use food and beverage containers made of expanded polystyrene foam, rigid polystyrene #6, and non-recyclable and non-compostable materials.
Motion carries. Thank you. We're moving on to item 12, please. Communication from Councilwoman Price, Councilmember Pierce, Councilmember Superdog Council Member, your UNGA recommendation direct city manager to provide an update on the implementation of the Long Beach ban on single use food and beverage containers. Councilman Price. Thank you. And I'm going to turn it over to staff for their staff report on this item. And I think I'll have a few follow up questions after. Thank you, Councilmember Price. The timing of this request from council was very fortunate. We were in the middle of doing an update, so this worked out very well. We happy to give you an update of the progress of the ordinance implementation so far and what's next to come. And then I understand in the next agenda item there's a potential to give us some additional direction. So with that, I will turn it over to Craig Beck. Thank you, Mr. Modica. Good evening. They are members of council. We appreciate the opportunity to come before you and share all the results that are happening relative to the expanded polystyrene ordinance that was implemented by this council. There we go. So adopted in April of last year, the polystyrene ordinance really put in place this city's goals to try to reduce pollution and address some of the issues. Polystyrene. The Council asked to move forward with an implementation over three different. Phases and those phases. Addressed different type of of food establishments. Phase one included all city facilities. Phase two were are large food providers in phase three were are small food providers in that is coming up here in December. So we thought it was a good time to check in, share what's going on and. Why we believe we're having a lot of. Success with the implementation of the ordinance. So I'm going to ask Deacon Marconi and to run through some of the specifics of what we've been doing. Good evening, Honorable Mayor. Members of the Council, I'm here to provide you some updates on what we've been doing with the ordinance and what we're going to be continuing to do. And I'm very excited to do that. It's hard to believe that this council requested this ordnance already. One and a half years ago, on September 3rd of 2018, we reached phase one in this phase included city facilities and permitted special events. And I'm really proud to say that we have 100% compliance and all our city facilities with this ordnance that includes the airport and all the restaurants within the airport, the Museum of Art, the Golf Courses, Aquarium Convention Center. And we still have a few challenges with permitted special events, mostly centered around food trucks that are given their licenses outside of Long Beach that aren't made aware of our ordinance. So we're working on that, but we're excited to see the success of Phase one. Phase two included larger restaurants as defined by the city council as being 101 people or more seating 401 people or more and franchised restaurants. That includes our subways and Starbucks and McDonald's and Jack in the Box. And it's interesting that many of these chain restaurants were already in compliance. There have already been some pressure on these restaurants, too, to steer away from polystyrene. So the subway's Chipotle Starbucks, jack in the box, McDonald's, all these chains were already in compliance. We did have a few like Chick fil A and 7-Eleven that requested specific assistance staff provided them with that. 7-Eleven is subject to a phase three as well, because they will be they sell polystyrene expanded polystyrene ice chests. And that were those were banned under this ordinance. But they already have a suitable alternative, and they have no fear that they will comply with that retail portion of their compliance. By December 3rd, phase three goes into effect December 3rd, and it affects restaurant seating less than 101 people. It also includes a ban on certain retail products such as craft beads, pies, expanded polystyrene craft beads and coolers. 77% of the food establishments in the city fall under phase three, so a huge chunk of the food establishments fall under phase three. I'd like to note that the Health Department started making site visits back in September of 2018, and to date they've found that one third of the restaurants that fall under Phase three are already early compliant. We also had public works staff go out over the summertime, starting much later than September 2018, around June of 2019, and in a three or four month period, they visited nearly 300 restaurants and found that out of a sample of 287 businesses, 43% were already in early compliance. So we were really pleased that that the restaurants are partnering with us so actively. So how did we get this message out there? We did a lot of outreach and education. We had direct mailers sent in June of 2018. In June of 2018, we advised the businesses about economic incentives that were available for businesses to utilize to help support the transition. January 2019 and about a week ago, we sent follow up postcards reminding the affected businesses of what their requirements were. We also we also have a phone free website for that provides resources and education to these businesses. And I'd like to mention that we gave away nearly $13,000 in incentives to our businesses. To put that in comparison to other cities we're aware of that have afforded economic incentives were San Francisco which is much larger obviously and Encinitas which is much smaller. Obviously, neither city had anyone to apply for economic incentives. We really put that message out there. So some of our businesses could take advantage of that, and we're really proud of that. We also did a little knock and talk. We borrow that phrase from elsewhere. We visited 362 businesses. We had a multilingual strategy. We had print advertising, fliers, lots of social media posts, lots of Facebook and website promotion of the program. We called it phone free. Long Beach was how we branded it, and businesses who complied with the ordinance, if they so chose, could join from free Long Beach and become a phone free Long Beach member. And what we do is then promote those restaurants as being phone free. We provide them with window decals, a letter from the mayor. We provide them with paper straws and special recognition, one on one assistance and promotion at city events. We visited restaurants in every council district. We visited at least 30 restaurants in every council district. Obviously, some council districts have more restaurants than others, or certainly they might be clumped together more than others, making it easier to hit more. But we had very positive reactions and especially want to call out restaurants along Retro Row in CD2, in Belmont, Shaw and CD3 and along Atlantic Avenue in CD8. Such willingness and downtown's such willingness to participate, and it's almost as if they teamed up together and said, Let's just do this. You know, it was great. Continued promotion of foam free Long Beach. Over 100 posts on Facebook and Twitter. Six weeks of advertising on Facebook and Instagram of nearly 30,000 people reached on that 13 print ads in multiple languages, including the Grunion Gazette, the Long Beach Business Journal, LA Opinion. This next slide is one of my favorites because these are three businesses I wasn't even familiar with, and we like to go out to new restaurants and places to try out. And this is exactly what we were trying to accomplish with the Fall Free Long Beach Partnership is to promote these businesses, and we're checking out new restaurants all the time now that we didn't even know existed. So we're really excited about that. But that's not all. Along with our foam free Long Beach campaign, we started to bring your own Long Beach campaign, and that was helping people make commitments to reusing their own material. So, for example, we have given out about 5000 packages of reusable to go items. You may have seen some of these. They include reusable cutlery, collapsible bowls, reusable chopsticks, metal utensil kits, reusable straws. And we have gotten pledges from 4000 residents of Long Beach to utilize these items and take them with them. The goal being as more and more people bring their own reusable items. Restaurants need to purchase fewer fewer products to use for to-go items. I have to compliment the Health Department on what amazing partners they've been. They've played a major role in compliance. They've played a major role in education. And without their support, this wouldn't be possible. They have integrated education and compliance into their annual food facility inspections. They go to the facilities each each year, and they've been working with the businesses to help them come into compliance. Their main focus, as they do with any new roll out of programs, is education, education, education. How do we get people compliant who aren't? They found that 33% of the businesses they've visited are already in compliance. And as I said earlier, a smaller sample over the summer, over a shorter period of time, we found 43 are actually in early compliance. Enforcement procedures allow for a focus on education. That's the goal. The second visit will reinforce that compliance requirements. A third visit may result in an administrative citation, which seldom, if ever, happens. Or an office hearing. A fourth visit could result in a referral to the city prosecutor or business licensing. The ordinance allows for a procedure to be put in place for temporary exemptions due to hardship. No one has asked for that temporary exemption at this point. A hotline has been created and online format will be available for the public to report repeated violations to us. At this point, I'd like to thank the Council for having a thoughtful approach to this and phasing this in. It's a unique way of doing it. Most cities that we don't know of, any other city that has a phased in process of this type. Most cities just give you 30 or 60 days and you're either in compliance or you're not. You move on. So I think the businesses are very appreciative of that sensitivity. Thank you. And I would just like to add quickly that I want. To. Recognize the leadership of Erin Roland. She's been leading this effort for the city. She's done a fantastic job in. Get to the point. We are and we look forward to her continued efforts as we move into phase three. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Do you have any. Public comments. I don't. No strangers, Vice Mayor. Can I say a few things? Yes, I was going. Oh, sorry. You know, I was gonna go by the diocese. Okay, fine. Councilwoman Pryce. Thank you very much. Vice Mayor. Sir. Thank you for that report. That was a really, really great report. I'm surprised, pleasantly surprised to hear that 33% of the small businesses are in early compliance. That's incredible. Thank you for that statistic. I didn't know it. I know that when we initially those of us that really advocated for a phased in approach, wanted to know what the fiscal impact might be for the small businesses to phase in fully. Do we did we do a study on that? Do we have any who did the study? Do we have any information on that? Like what is the cost to them? What kind of a burden is this for a restaurant that that seats 101 or less? Councilmember Price We didn't do a formal study. We didn't commission a formal study for that. We do have some research, though, on cost comparisons, and we found very little differences in cost comparisons. And it also depends on what a business decides to use. We have one business that went to a using aluminum foil and said they saved a tremendous amount of money over it. And we have some businesses that have chosen to go more expensive options. But they've also commented that. Their customers seem to really appreciate the fact that they've moved on, as there seems to be some sort of social stigma starting to develop over polystyrene. So, you know, I can give you some examples where we have foam, for example, a 16 ounce foam cup for cold drinks was about. $0.04 a cup, and now they're about four and a half cents a cup in some cases. We have other examples where a nine inch foam plate was about $0.04 a plate and now the paper plate is $0.01 a plate. So it really is all over the map. So it's fair to say that in some cases they actually reduce their costs. In some cases, their costs went up. But in those cases, it's negligible. The range is around a half a cent or so it appears. So I would say it probably averages maybe a penny. Okay. And then remind me on this. Did we did we include large retailers like Smart and Final and other retailers in our ordinance. With respect to the ban, the retail sale ban on ice chests and with the Kraft foam balls. Yes. But not as to cups, plates, things of that nature. No. Okay. So there's an opportunity there to to further expand the ban. Yes. If you should so choose. I'm frankly, I'm surprised that they're still selling those, but that's just my personal opinion. And the other thing that I thought was interesting is that no one has applied for the hardship exemption. Was that something that was discussed in all the visits? That that's an option? I can't honestly say it was discussed in all the visits, but yes, they were made aware of it. Okay. All right. And I'm assuming that's included in the outreach materials that we provided. Yes, it was. And I think an important point that we wanted to add to your question earlier about economic impact. One of the things that we're also trying to champion, and we included a slide is to bring your own campaign. And so we're finding that more and more restaurant patrons are actually bringing their own containers to to if they're having take home and they're utilizing that. So I think the overall usage of the containers themselves are going down, that that's a trend we're seeing happening. That's great. Finally, on behalf of the third district, I want to thank you. It looks like you went to 75 businesses, restaurants in the third district, more than any other district. And I'm assuming that's probably mostly due to our business corridors because they're highly concentrated in those business corridors. But I thank you for doing that. I think that individual outreach goes a long way. And I will say just anecdotally, I'm noticing trends in terms of the bring your own. I work in a courthouse on a day to day basis. And my the my staff that works for me are all much younger than me. And they've apparently caught this on this train long before me. And they a bunch of them got stopped at the metal detectors because they were trying to bring in their own knives and forks for their lunches. And the bailiffs were looking at them like they were aliens. Like what? What are these little bags? They had all had these cute little bags that had like their straw, their knife in their fork. And they they all you know, someone went and bought some for everybody. I was trying to bring them in. So they called the supervisor and they're like, your employees are trying to bring knives and forks into the courthouse. And they said, well, of course, we don't want to use the plastic ones. So this definitely is a as a change. And I could see how that social stigma would continue to grow in light of what I'm seeing with my the opportunities for learning that my staff provides me every day. So thank you. It. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. I was wondering. No, no, I wasn't trying to stop. Thank you for the great report. I have another item coming up right after this. Obviously, to expand a little more on this on this topic. But a lot of the outreach and education component of this process, especially when you're raising it in. It's very important to keep people connected with what's taking place. So I have a new one here. So it's a knocking talker. That's a that's a that's opposed to what I always do, what I'm campaigning, which is smile and dial. Impressive flesh, though, which is what I'm doing when I'm here. We all have our methods. Yeah, we do. But no thank you. And and in the multilingual strategy, it obviously is, is is working. But again, I think we need to expand the efforts and try to get the the mobile restaurants more and more in tune with what's taking place, especially to be operating here in Long Beach. So but thank you for your efforts on this. Thank you for not. Thank you. And while many third district restaurants were mentioned, I don't recall a mention of Jojo's in the fourth District, but I believe they are part of the plastic campaign, foam campaign. They absolutely. Are. Okay. And are there any other 95 year old establishments and continue this operation who have jumped on the bandwagon here? I can't say with complete certainty, but I'm going to say no. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Also, when you mention the Styrofoam ice chests, I think beanbag chairs, if my recollection serves me, also part of that ban. Yes. Anything with the polystyrene balls is included. The last question is. I understood that originally when this came forward, we were going to go with a third party analysis on these outcomes. If that wasn't the case, then I need to be corrected. I thought that's where we were and one of the rationales was that the impact on staff time. So two questions there. Do we do we have third party analysis? And then I think you said that the health department handled this with all within their staff time and it worked out well. We went back and reviewed the council minutes and there was no direction to do a third party analysis. So we did not do that. That said, you know, there was obviously time to develop the campaign and distribute the materials, but the health department has now incorporated that education and outreach within their regular visits. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. The sleep. He's come forward. I just thought I should say something nice. So thank you so much for taking this one up. 12 and 13. Definitely. Environmentally, I think you're doing the right thing. Thanks. Thank you. And with that members, Mr. Gordon, cast your votes. Ocean carries 13, please.