Photo: freepik
A plastic bag ban in an Ohio municipality is at the heart of a battle between city and state lawyers.
According to local outlet WOUB Public Media, officials in Athens, Ohio, have mounted a contentious legal debate with the state over a plastic bag ban enacted by the city in 2023.
Some area retailers worried at the time that the ban could add to their operating costs, while some residents committed to helping the city make the important transition by meeting to sew reusable bags that would then be given away for free.
Meanwhile, the city ban prompted the state to file and win a suit at the county level last summer. The state argued that the ban was unconstitutional because it clashed with a state law that allows merchants to use plastic bags.
The city of Athens has now pushed the issue to the state court of appeals, where they argued that the ban not only doesn’t conflict with state law but that it falls within the city’s right to self-govern.
“That’s exactly what the city of Athens was doing … governing itself,” Jesse Branner Hittle, Athens assistant law director, told the judges, per WOUB.
Source: msn
