To Fight Climate Change, Los Angeles Bans Restaurants From Giving Out Unsolicited Ketchup Packets

Some Los Angeles politicians seem to relish micromanaging the behavior of businesses and consumers.

Beginning this week, a new city law goes into effect forbidding restaurants with 26 or more employees from handing out ketchup and mustard packets without the customer first requesting them. Come April 2022, it will apply to all restaurants.

The intent of the new ordinance—which also restricts the distribution of other single-use items like napkins and utensils—is to prevent waste and combat climate change, according to its authors.

“If we are to overcome the extreme climate challenges we face, we will have to alter or otherwise transform all our habits relating to fossil fuel products, including plastics, and our essential natural resources, like forests,” said Councilmember Paul Koretz, co-author of the ordinance, in a Tuesday press release. “These goods are also sustaining the fading fossil fuel industry, which is a major contributor to climate change,” added Councilmember Paul Krekorian, another co-author.

Businesses will be given warnings for first and second violations of the ordinance, and a $25 fine for each day the business is out of compliance after that. Fines for individual businesses are capped at $300 per year.- READ MORE