Comments

1
secrete?
2
Boo fucking hoo.

The Autozone I work at loses $5000 of merchandise every few weeks, without the assistance of reusable bags. Just people stuffing stuff into their big oversized winter coats, or just walking out with shit in-hand.

$8,000 over 6 months? That's nothing.
3
Laws have unintended consequences? I am shocked.
4
Your use of 'secrete' is incorrect. Glands secrete. People secret (hid) things. It's pronounced the same as any other secret, as in "I've Got a Secret."
5
I secrete merchandise all the time. But that's because I sell my crotch sweat to a vending machine company in Tokyo.
6
The article's author has mis-used "secrete." Only glands secrete. People secret (hide) things. It's pronounced the same as any other use of the word, for example "Secret this in your shoe, and don't let the guards find it."
7
Well, duh! What did he think was going to happen? That was obvious. I'm more curious about the e. coli and other bacteria. It shouldn't be too hard to research. Go out and test people's bags and then release the data.

If you want a nanny state, then you need to at least own up for your fuckups and blowback.
8
Secrete: "to deposit or conceal in a hiding place."
9
@#4
Y'know, Google is your friend
se·crete
/siˈkrēt/
Verb
1) (of a cell, gland, or organ) Produce and discharge (a substance).
2) Conceal; hide: "the assets had been secreted in Swiss bank accounts".


(Disclaimer: Google may not actually be your friend; it may not actually be anyone's friend.)

(Second disclaimer: Google can't possibly be less your friend than is your own tendency to be simultaneously supercilious and erroneous)
10
Re-usable bags contain a ton of bacteria. Then again, that probably wouldn't concern people who stick their penises in asses.
11
Maybe rising food costs are to blame? I saw asparagus for more than $9 per lb at Madison Market this week. Fucking asparagus!
12
This is somewhat interesting, and not terribly surprising - but it's utterly lacking in context, such as how these numbers compare to the amount of theft they suffered before the bag ban; how they compare to their total sales, and to their profit; and how they compare to the money they've saved on plastic carrier bags.
13
Love your use of "secrete."


secrete, 2
vb
(tr) to put in a hiding place
[variant of obsolete secret to hide away; see secret (n)]



from freedictionaryonline dot com
14
I sure am happy we have all you left-wing, politically-correct nitwits in the world. It's so nice that you can be the fuck-ups and save the rest of us the trouble. Keep it up!
15
Oh, it's no trouble being a fuck-up.
16
the bag ban is a red herring. the real problem at Lake City grocery outlet is lots of extremely hungry people living in that neighborhood, doing what they have to do to feed their families (I know, I live here). Very few people secret or secrete food without a damn good reason.

but yea Stranger, nice reporting work. You're really rockin' the news-comedy these days!
17
It explains why Erica C. Barnett supports it.
19
1. Don't let people use the bags while shopping.

2. Wash your bag (you know, like other fabric things that get dirty?).
20
Why don't they just ask people to check their bags at the door?
21
I, too am more interested in the e-coli, norovirus, etc. content of the reusable bags customers bring in. I have noticed at my local supermarket they gave all of the cashiers hand sanitizer. No doubt they need it considering all the nasty reusable bags they have to touch. It is evident that most of those bags have never been washed.
22
do they ask them to check their backpacks? no? then stfu and get a better guard. This whole story is silly.
23
@4 I was wondering how bodily secretions worked into this. Or is there a Strangelove angle to this?
24
I don't think that store has been open much longer than the ban's been in place.
25
Look, at the Tacoma Food Co-op, there's a shelf by the door where you leave your bags as you enter. They don;t even use a security guard. If you forget, one of the clerks will gently remind you of the store's policy.

This isn't rocket science, and you don't need to spend a lot of money hiring security personnel.
26
The Nazis were the first to introduced seat-belt laws, OPEN YOUR EYES SHEEPLE!
27
I love how Seattlepi was flooded with conservative commenters from FreedomWorks
28
@ 25, maybe you should drop a note in your local QFC's suggestion box.
29
Well that's a pretty clear case of poorly documented correlation dressed up as alleged causation and I don't like it.

Here's one I do like: As a compulsive litter-picker-upper, I have noticed that since the plastic bag ban started, I've seen a lot less plastic bags floating around outside as litter. The same goes for styrofoam too.

XO Bag Ban!
30
28,

Ummm... I'll stick with the co-op, thanks. I'm not exactly a QFC kinda guy.
31
Do they still even have QFCs in Denver? Here in the Seattle area, they've been gradually turning into KrogerMarts, though as far as I can tell, it's just the signs and the meat labels that have changed. I think they're still running through their supply of QFC paper bags.
32
One must secrete in secret and then secretely secret the secret secretions. Pedantic much??
33
When I was a cashier, growing up in my family's grocery store business, in a time before Purell was a big thing, before anyone re-used their bags, I sought out hand sanitizer on my own dime because, ew, money is gross. (Yeah, this was also a time before debit cards.) Money has way more germs than my canvas bags. And, duh, wash your bags.

Oh, and in this time before Purell and canvas bags and debit cards and the internet and cell phones and scanners at the cash register and other exciting things, whaddaya know? We still had a shit ton of shoplifting going on.
34
"since the plastic-bag ban started last July, he's lost at least $5,000 in produce and between $3,000 and $4,000 in frozen food. 'We've never lost that much before'"

Are the amounts listed the total increase? Or just the total shrinkage, with pre-ban numbers being somewhat lower? It's not clear to me.
35
Whiners gonna whine.
36
@ 31, here Kroger acquired King Soopers. But I lived in Seattle for eight years and I know that QFC is their main brand, along with Fred Meyer.
37
@11 uh, isn't Madison Market fucking expensive?
38
1. pay 5 cents and get a paper bag
2. homeless and drug addicts and drunk hipsters steal food and carts all the time from 22nd ave madison safeway and litter my hood with it. pre and post plastic bag band.
3. the yellow pages ban was the worst idea ever...nice waste of tax money. didnt they consult a lawyer? or talk to yellow pages and see if they would sue?!? first. never understood the prob...it took 10 seconds to throw the book in the recycling bin. was it really that big of problem!
39
@37

Bad weather in California and Mexico drove up the prices for certain organic produce, including broccoli.
40
Sure there's a chance that this is a post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy but Holden's comment about the Holocaust has no such chance and is just asinine.

I find it entirely plausible that shoplifting has increased due to the bag ban. Suggesting stores change policy fails for additional cost of policing and customer alienation and logistics and... I'll wager the Broadway QFC has always had a good deal of shoplifting and that is has increased due to the bag ban. Asking customers to check bags at one of three entrances and policing their bag use wouldn't be good for business either. I'm not sure of the relationship to Nazis but perhaps Holden can supply that.
41
At least the liberals in Seattle don't have the balls to ban folks from driving their SUV's all time time ...with just the driver.

Plastic bag ban is the same as telling a patient to take an aspirin to cure that bout of cancer and the amputated arm they are suffering from.
42
Wait a second, thieves didn't try to steal items in the past?

Stores have the simple solution of just not allowing people to fill their bags in the shopping area. In fact, many of them do this already.
43
The funnest thing is that the plastic bags were the most environmentally friendly way to carry your groceries. But that doesn't matter in Seattle, where it's not about being green but about telling yourself that you're green.
44
The first thing I would do as benevolent dictator of the United States is assign a mandatory class to everyone above the age of 13 that explains "Correlation does not equal causation."
45
#19, lots of people don't wash the cloth bags. Ask a checker abou that sometime. And the environmental impact of washing those bags is enormous, by the way. Even without washing them, they're much worse for the environment than plastic was. But that's just science, and no one in Seattle gives a shit about science.
47
@ 45, I call bullshit on the "enormous environmental impact" of bag washing. You just wash them with your clothes. You have no "science" proving any such claim.
48
Conservatives would get rid of the FDA but suddenly they care about what bacteria is in your re-usable grocery bag? I've never washed my grocery bags cuz I don't give a shit. If you handle your food properly there's no reason to worry.
49
I call BS on the theft spike. If I were to walk into my local grocery store (hi, Hilltop Red Apple!) or the nearest big chain (Good Evening, Rainier Ave QFC) and just filled up a reusable shopping bag with stuff, you can be damn sure I would be watched, and if I went anywhere near the door, the powers-that-be would be on me - and I am a respectable middle-aged white gentleman who has shopped at both stores for years.

If I were to try to walk out of the 4th avenue south Grocery Outlet without going past the check stand, the world would literally come to an end.

It's OK to hate the bag ban. Just don't try to kid me about the reasons.

50
The comments on the P-I article are like a tea-party circle jerk, I just don't get the idiocy. The self-check-out aisles (ugh) are definitely a theft magnet. I use my carry bags as shopping bags, since the stores often don't have the baskets, and I want to be sure my purchases fit. Since checkers or baggers fill the bag, and you hand your bags to them to be filled with your purchases, WTF is the problem? This blame-the-bag-ban is just bullshit. As is the bacteria-scare idiocy.

A typical gem from the P-I comments (gawd bless 'murrica!)

The ban on plastic bag has definitely had unintended consequences. just like the ban on assault weapons will have on the unarmed citizens who can't protect themselves or those around them. Looking forward to it, actually.
51
:sigh: we went through this meme here in DC, as well. Yes, people started using the re-usable bags to shoplift, but they were doing it in lieu of shoplifting in other ways. So the store security guards started watching out for people not departing from a register leaving with a full shopping bag AS WELL AS those who were hauling big backpacks and large coats. Stores put up signs asking people not to bag their items before checking out and staff started carrying around baskets and giving them to customers using their re-usable bag as a basket and explaining the policy. In the end, things settled out and the stores admitted the theft problems were no worse, just harder to catch at first since they needed to adapt. Even without bag fees or bans, lots of people use(d) reusable shopping bags, so it was something they really should have been watching out for all along. I mean, if you intend to shoplift, and you know they're not looking out for those leaving with reusable bags without evidence of paying (I guess in most of the stores here, the registers are near the door, and it should be obvious to a security guard or cashier that someone is bypassing the registers without passing through the checkout with a bag with stuff in it), buying a few $.99 bags is a good investment, no?

And, yeah, washing the bags here and there works wonders. I'd add to that a smidge of nail polish or fabric paint (I used nail polish). The handles of each of my bags have a mark painted on them for veggies that will be cooked (purple), veggies that will be eaten raw (green), meat (red), and household supplies (blue). Once upon a time, I was actually food safety certified, and I've been using reusable bags for about 6 years now and never gotten sick off them. I've also never paid for a bag, since I scoop up free bags whenever I can. I have 5 I snagged during the free give-aways the GROCERY STORES sponsored when DC put its bag fee in place and another 5 I've picked up at various conferences, exhibitions, and other events. My weekly grocery shopping *could* be done in two, but usually requires 3-4 to keep things separate (no, I'm not a jerk who expects the cashier to know what those paint marks mean, and usually bag my own while they scan), so I've got at least 4 weeks to wash them between uses, building up enough other nasties (dish towels and rags) to throw in with them that it's not a "wasted" laundry load.
52
And also, ah, yes, the "science" argument. Yes, a reusable bag must be *reused* to recoup its impact, but that's kind of a given, isn't it? From what I've seen, to recoup the impact of just making the bag, it must be used to replace about 25 plastic bags. Since, in my experience, a reusable bag will hold twice as much as a disposable sack, that means ~13 uses. To be conservative, I'll use myself as an example. Most of my groceries are delivered to my home from my local co-op, but I do buy about 3 bags *full* from grocery and other stores over the course of an average month. So if I only owned one bag, it would take me ~4 months to recoup its impact. Since I own 10, that's about 4 years of use, total. Over the course of the 6 years I've been using reusable bags, I've lost 2. One had a strap break and the other was stolen out of my office.

But that analysis is still simplistic. I use my reusable bags for LOTS of other things, since they're pretty comfortable to carry, compared to a plastic bag. I haul food into work in them and carry my workout and sports stuff in them. If I need to toss some tools into a bag to go work on my apartment, they'll hold up better and be more comfortable to carry. They're my go-to if I need to tote something around. AND, having to pay for a bag makes me think twice about whether I really need it. Even if I DON'T have a reusable bag with me, I think about whether I can just carry what I'm getting or shove it into my purse. Sure, some people act a fool and refuse to pay a NICKEL when they could really use a bag, precariously balancing their lunch back to the office, but most of us think about it and decide rationally. I DON'T need a bag for a snack and drink, and the fee makes me consider that and decline something unnecessary, rather than having it bagged as a matter of course.

And, yes, if you wash them along with regular laundry, it's all the same. I'd still be washing my rags, dish towels, and bath mats, and there's plenty of room in the washer for the extra stuff (I'm lucky to have a front-loader that automatically adjusts the already-lower water level to the size of the load, and I just hang the bags to dry, since something tells me that many of them would just melt in the dryer). Saying that something that needs to be used ~13 times to cover its footprint is useless because it needs to be washed is akin to saying that we should just dispose of our clothing because we need to wash it between wears. Sure, if you buy something, wear it once, and wash it, then you're wasting resources. But if you wash it and use it again and again for YEARS, the washing is ultimately less harmful than the producing, particularly if you use cold water, appropriate water levels, and hang dry.
53
#52, try 176 plastic bags. Of course, that's mere science, and you have faith and preconceptions. You know, kinda like the people you hate on the other side of the mountains. Ah, but they're stupid and they don't think. Well neither do you.

I do love the denial of the environmental impact of washing the reusable bags, i.e., the belief, which is completely unfounded in logic or science, that they take up zero space in a washing machine. You people will tell yourselves any lie you can to avoid challenging your faith. You know, kinda like the people you hate on the other side of the mountains ...
54
I use a "box" instead. CRESBI crates are lightweight plastic crates that stack, collapse and no bacteria problem because they're dishwasher safe. Plus they also hold more than any bag I've tried. I open the crates as I shop and turn barcodes up on my items as I place them in the crates. Then the checker scans my items in the crate and hands the crates back to me - so less people touching my stuff. Checkers love them, bag boys love them and store managers really love them because they can see what I'm buying. cresbi.com is the site.

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