New deposit bottle law? What new deposit bottle law?
As usual, the retailers of Oregon are showing their utter contempt for Oregon's bottle bill. Where is the enforcement? Why is this in the hands of the liquor commission? I know he's busy making himself the next technology czar, but why doesn't our new attorney general do something about this for the consumer? Earth to Salem!
| Posted at 2:37 PM | Permalink |
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Comments (9)
I think it's in the hands of the OLCC because is written that way. I don't think the AG even has jurisdiction. So I'm not about to jump down Kroger's throat on this issue. Plus, in the ordering of priorities for the AG in only his third day on the job, even if he did have jurisdiction, is bottle bill enforcement the top priority?
Posted by hilsy | January 7, 2009 3:03 PM
Kroger as 'Flubs,' the Capitalist Tool, says so: "... changes in technology transfer licensing drafted ...."
WTF? Hardly Matters.
Posted by Tenskwatawa | January 7, 2009 3:39 PM
Plus, in the ordering of priorities for the AG in only his third day on the job, even if he did have jurisdiction, is bottle bill enforcement the top priority?
If "technology transfer" is, then this certainly is.
Interesting, though. If the ODOJ doesn't have jurisdiction, who does? OLCC lawyers? Local police?
Posted by Jack Bog | January 7, 2009 3:43 PM
I mentioned this problem in your last thread on the bottle return issues. What were retailers to do? Were they to stop selling bottled water in 2008 once they ran out of unlabeled bottles? Are they supposed to through away all of the perfectly good bottles of water product because they aren't labeled? If they sold them marked as 5 cent deposit before 2009, as the OLCC said they could starting 7/1/08, then they would have to pay the 5 cents even though it wasn't collected. (Though as I understand it that wouldn't be any skin of the retailers nose, as they give all the deposit to the bottler, and then charge the bottler back for what they refund.)
Making any changes to the bottle deposit is a big pain, because you will end up with bottles in various values floating around. Sure you could track it by changing the UPC code, but that doesn't help with what you do with the old stock when the change actually occurs.
The only reasonable way to do would be to let the stores continue to sell their stock of undeposited bottles without charging the deposit, and require that the UPC code be changed for all products to reflect the change. But, they would have to really enforce that bottlers could not produce any more unlabeled bottles unless they liked getting huge fines.
Posted by Mike | January 7, 2009 3:44 PM
Nobody's ever heard of glue?
Posted by Allan L. | January 7, 2009 4:28 PM
Allan,
The problem with putting stickers on is that how do you put stickers on a multi-pack of bottles? Or do you just open it and sell them individually? (Which they aren't always labeled for individual sale.)
Also, that means that anyone can just put a label on any old water bottle and turn it in for the deposit.
Posted by Mike | January 7, 2009 4:40 PM
Everybody had many months to get ready for this. Many retailers did. Those who didn't should be fined severely.
Posted by Jack Bog | January 7, 2009 5:40 PM
Also, that means that anyone can just put a label on any old water bottle and turn it in for the deposit.
*light bulb goes on above head*
You know, business has been really slow, and I have some ends to make meet...
Posted by Cabbie | January 7, 2009 7:06 PM
"Many retailers did. Those who didn't should be fined severely."
They're water bottles and we're in an economic meltdown.
You want retailers severely fined?
Or as the O said this morning the bottles should be tossed? Perfect.
Posted by Ben | January 8, 2009 10:40 AM