22 Aug 2013 Banning Bloomberg Strikes Again

In a piece for Forbes, I explain how Mayor Bloomberg’s latest ban is bad for consumers and job-creating businesses alike.

While it may not be easy being green, New York City will be a much more hospitable place for small gray animals once the Mayor’s mandatory food composting plan goes into effect. Rats and mice will be the real winners when every City resident has to leave out their rotting food until composting day. For New Yorkers, the idea stinks.

But it gets worse. As I write,

Last month, Bloomberg puppet Lewis Fidler (D-Brooklyn) introduced a bill in the City Council that would end the use of expanded polystyrene, more widely knows as styrofoam. Gone would be containers, trays, and other products at restaurants, food trucks, and stores beginning July 1, 2015.

This latest Bloomberg Ban would make our take-out and delivery food a little more expensive and a lot messier. It would also harm the small businesses Bloomberg claims to support, as they’d have to pay nearly double for alternatives. Worse, the ban will do little to protect the environment — especially in light of a more rational approach.

Voicing her support for the bill, City Council Speaker and mayoral candidate Christine Quinn said that “at the end of time, the only things that are going to be left are cockroaches and styrofoam unless we do something about it.” While I’d rather get rid of the cockroaches and rodents first, there’s no valid reason styrofoam can’t be recycled.

Read the full Forbes piece piece here.