Controversial cup, paper bag fees being re-examined in Vancouver

Vancouver city council has voted to re-examine its controversial disposable cup and paper bag fees, which came into effect less than a month ago.

Coun. Rebecca Bligh says the new fees disproportionally affect low-income residents and don't give drive-thru or delivery-app customers any other option but to pay the fee.

"The problem here is people feel they're charged a fee when they really don't have any other option but to pay the fee," Bligh told CTV News Vancouver. "That really is not effective and it's not actually achieving the outcome that we had intended to with the bylaw."

The bylaw was applied on Jan. 1 and requires businesses to charge 25 cents for disposal cups and 15 cents for paper bags. Plastic bags were banned altogether in the city.

For some businesses, the new bylaws didn't actually result in any changes. For example, JJ Bean Coffee Roasters says it has been encouraging waste reduction for years and says because of that it's already in compliance with the City of Vancouver's new cup fee rules.

"What they told us all to do is to make sure that to-go pricing is higher than for-here pricing but we've always had that," said John Neate, CEO of JJ Bean Coffee Roasters.

JJ Bean has one price for drinking from one of the store's mugs in-house, adding 25 cents more if you get a to-go cup and 25 cents off the regular price if you bring your own reusable mug.

Meanwhile, Starbucks is charging the extra fee for to-go cups but says it has been offering 10 cents off the regular price if you bring your own mug. While that option was paused during the pandemic, the coffee-shop chain says it's allowing customers to bring their own mugs again.

Customers who bring their own mugs are supposed to place them in a receptacle offered by Starbucks. That is to ensure employees don't have to touch the consumer's cup. Once the beverage is made, the consumer retrieves the cup from the receptacle.

Vancouver councillors voted this week to have city staff take another look at the bylaw to see how it can be improved.

The deadline for staff to report back is March 15. In the meantime, the fees remain in place.

With files from CTV News Vancouver's Nafeesa Karim and Ross McLaughlin