On January 1st, the city of Woodstock’s new bag tax went into effect.
Passed by the city council in late September, the 10 cents per bag tax for store-provided plastic bags will give the collecting merchant 3 cents, and the remaining 7 cents in revenue will go to the city’s environmental management fund.
The city’s ordinance requires all stores at least 5,000 square feet or larger to charge the tax for all store-provided plastic bags for customers.
On New Year’s Day, 14th congressional district candidate Catalina Lauf, a Woodstock resident, encountered the new bag tax for the first time at the Jewel-Osco, and let loose with her opinion on Twitter to her over 40,000 followers:
Another candidate on the March primary ballot, Woodstock Mayor Brian Sager running for the Democratic nomination for 63rd district state representative against Peter Janko, stated the following, to the Northwest Herald:
“The idea here is that there should be diminishing revenue from this fee because more and more people would be using reusable bags.”
Mayor Brian Sager
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Typical big brother liberalism, trying to change behavior and get the people to use reusable grocery bags.
Supporting the bag tax, and Catalina Lauf campaign contributor City Council Member Mike Turner, said the following:
“This is an avoidable tax.
“This isn’t a tax you have to pay. Find a bag. Use the bag. Don’t pay the tax. It’s pretty simple.”
City Council Member Mike Turner explaining how the bag tax is avoidable
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Last year, the Democrats who run Springfield floated a statewide plastic bag tax as a potential revenue source.
While the Democrats abandoned the statewide bag tax last spring, the proposed legislation would exempt municipalities who have a local bag tax ordinance in place, in order to keep the bag tax revenues in the municipality.
Maybe that is Woodstock’s strategy, to pass the local tax knowing Springfield will likely come back with the state bag tax in the future and this time pass it?
External link:
Don’t look in Mayor Sager’s trunk.
Lol, this bag tax was passed by a group of elected self important jerky boys
Stupid idea.
The retailers in Woodstock should have fought this harder.
Fewer people will shop in Woodstock and sales tax revenue will drop.
Catalina is correct. Bag tax for using clean and fresh new bags provided by a store is ridiculous.
What instead is needed are new laws and regulations which most all Democrats and liberals absolutely would love to impose. They ARE about more laws, regulations and red tape.
Woodstock City Council and Mayor wrong by instituting bag ordinance. They should have instead created a law that would charge every customer bringing in their “reusable” bags. Each bag brought to a store that sells food would cost $2.00. As example, a customer bringing in 2 bags would be charged $4.00 by the checkout clerk. In addition, the law would require that bagging clerks would spray and wipe down the checkout conveyor belt and bagging area along with all of the shopping cart. The law would also require that each checkout lane have a properly marked trash container for the paper towels that were used for the wipedown.
Also, those persons bringing in reusable bags would be barred from using the self-checkout lanes.
In addition, every person who wants to use reusable bags in Woodstock would need to get a yearly license from the city. The license fee would be $25 and would cover the cost of a part-time city inspector who would make random visits to stores selling food and would check that clerks are wiping down carts and bagging areas. The inspector would be authorized to ask persons using reusable bags for their “Reusable Bag License”. Those without a license would be given a ticket and fined. Those persons with reusable bags attempting to use the self checkout lanes would be given a ticket and fined.
I will avoid Woodstock retailers unless necessary or worth the tax for convenience sake.
This has to put a lot of undo pressure on the retailers and their workers.
Not to bright!
This also is not sanitary.
I can guarantee that Crystal Lake will get more of my business going forward!
I know that at Mariano’s if you bring in your own bag you get a CREDIT for each bag.
How about using a REWARD system instead of a PUNISHMENT tax!
Way to go Democrats!
Yeah, people who live in Woodstock have known this was going to happen for months, because it was approved of a long time ago.
Newspapers have written about it too.
Is she just finding this out now?
Has Lauf ever spoke at a city council meeting?
It’s pretty easy to say you oppose something after the fact.
Has Lauf ever done anything in terms of local activism?
Is his Lordship Sager trying to get a marijuana dispensary license now?
Catalina would be a great replacement for Undernurse.
But really anybody (except Angel) would be, so I guess it’s not much of a compliment.
Here’s a tough question:
Who’s worse, Lightfoot or Underwood?
Ans: Underwood.
At least Lightfoot didn’t praise Jussie Smollet the homophobic self-hoaxer.
“Homophobic self hoaxer?” WTF?
I had no idea bringing bags to the store was setting so many people in edge.
Read a bit of science and think about the sources of bacteria and viruses in stores, restaurants, and on your food. Getting rid of single use plastic bags is not going to hurt you.
Do you feel the same if you see someone bring their to-go cup into Dunkin Donuts?
Between her statement about the local bag tax and hearing her talk about the problems in Illinois in a recent interview, I think Cat probably should have started out with a local office or perhaps State Rep (would have been more electable than Steve Reick) assuming she could have found enough petition circulators…
When she talked about the problems in Illinois, she was more articulate than usual, but I wasn’t sure if she or the sycophant host were aware that she would have no control over those issues in Congress!
If Illinois is a bad state, nobody from the 14th district is going to go to Washington and fix it.
Did the Republican Party try steering her into Reick’s seat?
Maybe the Republicans want to lose that seat, I don’t know…
In the last two years I’ve spent over $200,000 just at Menards, not including Farm and Fleet and various restaurants in town.
I’m halfway between Woodstock and Crystal Lake, my wife and I will just go southeast rather than northwest.
Like all politicians in Illinois, tax,tax,tax.
Your job is NOT to save the planet and to purport to is arrogance in the extreme.
Is this the candidate that thought the Mississippi River ran north?
The whole point of this new ordinance is to reduce plastic use, you have to be an idiot (like Catalina Fluff) to want more plastic lying around. Someday when our children (like Ms. Fluff) grow up they will appreciate it. Besides that, Congress does not usually vote on local bag taxes.
If Woodstock really wanted to save the planet, they could just ban the use of plastic bags within the city limits.
Time for the taxpayers to vote these crooks out of office.
Plastics are a major environmental problem and we need to hold the plastics industry accountable for what they make, such as mandating that they cannot produce that which is not part of a closed-loop cycle.
All plastics must be 100% actively recycled if they are allowed to be produced.
Also, plastic containers should be returned for reuse as we did for soda bottles.
The industry lied to us and that we have such a huge plastic problem is due entirely to their lies.
This fee is but a small attempt to end the use of a certain plastic product that isn’t necessary.
Bring your own bags and you don’t have to pay.
Maybe eliminating the person who thought of this crazy tax and not having to pay that persons salary, benefit pkg and pension.
Should help offset this crazy program.
Cut the waste and stop taxing people to death.