Grocery Workers Protest Bottle Bill Update

Nelson Eusebio speaks on the steps of City Hall Thursday about the ill effects on small businesses of a proposed bottle bill expansion. (Jonathan Weeks/Epoch Times)

NEW YORK—Supermarket and bodega owners, green grocers, bottlers, and others gathered on the steps of City Hall Thursday to protest plans for the expansion of the Bottle Bill.

According to the press release issued by organizers, whatever the environmental benefits that may come from this expansion plan, they won’t mitigate the severe harm that will be done to inner city stores that have no room to store containers currently covered under existing law.

“We’ve lost 100 supermarkets; they left the city and moved south,” said Nelson Eusebio, of the National Supermarket Association. “The government doesn’t have enough money because they are chasing our small businesses out.”

The disappearance of local supermarkets and bodegas has a devastating effect on the workforce, according to the press release. Thousands of neighborhood jobs have been lost and many were unionized workers with good benefits and family living wage. Opponents of the Bottle Bill are asking, why add more regulatory burdens and taxes placing more stress on these businesses?

Each carbonated drink you purchase has a five-cent deposit included in the price. When a bottler sends a shipment to the point of sale, the location pays them a nickel per unit and the purchaser pays them a nickel. When a container is returned, the vendor pays the customer a nickel and is then paid back by the bottler. This has resulted in reductions in litter.

Currently groceries and other businesses where people go to redeem empty bottles get an allowance from the government for any of the carbonated bottled drinks they sell. This is so they can pay people who return them (up to 240 per day, per person). If the store does not use up its allowance, they get to keep the money.

The problem for these businesses is that the expansion of the bill could include them losing the unredeemed deposit nickels. According to those for the bill, this means that the city receives several billion extra dollars every year.

Part of the expansion of the Bottle Bill will be to include non-carbonated beverages and establish a soda tax. The shop owners claim that this will cost them money that they can’t afford in this economic slump. Many shop small bottling company owners say they will just have to simply close. “Instead of creating an environment where local business can thrive, the government is using them for tax profits” said one supporter.

The environmentalists have been pushing this bill for years due to the positive effects for the environment and according to BottleBill.org 70 percent of New Yorkers support it.