The Chicopee City Council discusses banning single use plastic bags for retail stores.
Reminder Publishing screen capture by Tyler Garnet
CHICOPEE — After an Ordinance Committee meeting on Sept. 30 and a City Council meeting on Oct. 1, both groups voted favorable to enact a single use plastic bag ban for the city.
Members of the City Council recently discussed this idea in April that would get rid of plastic check-out bags including all plastic carryout bags provided by a store to a customer at the point of sale.
The order was filed by President Frank Laflamme, Vice President Robert Zygarowski, as well as Ward 4 City Councilor George Balakier and Ward 6 City Councilor Samuel Shumsky.
The ordinance goes into effect on June 1, 2025 and Health Director Lisa Sanders has a list of all the businesses she will be sending a letter to inform them of the changes.
If it is determined that a violation has occurred, Sanders or someone from her department will issue a warning notice. If another violation occurs within a year, the penalty for the first offense is $50 and $100 for the second and subsequent offenses.
The ordinance also includes the definition of a checkout bag that is allowed and not allowed.
Ward 5 City Councilor Fred Krampits discussed the new ordinance further.
He explained, “This is known as the plastic bag ordinance. This is for basically enacting a plastic bag ban through the city. This is for retail only. This does not affect like volunteer organizations that distribute food and things like that. Secondly, I understand why it was filed but I still feel kind of sad about it because I’m a person that reuses their plastic bags for their trash to try and be frugal, I guess. It’s just kind of one of those things when people are messy and just throw them. It’s sad that it has to come to this.”
Shumsky talked about the ordinance that he has been working on finally being passed.
“This is a big win for the city in my opinion. I know that recently we’ve been talking a lot of litter and trash in the city and truthfully, I proposed this with the co-sponsors President Laflamme, councilor Balakier and Vice President Zygarowski as a means to try and help mitigate the situations that were prevalent in my area of Chicopee because of where the Chicopee marketplace is. I truthfully think this is a great initiative to help clean the city up,” he said.
One of the main areas of focus is the row of retail stores at the 591 Memorial Dr. Supercenter off Sheridan Street that includes Walmart, Home Depot, Dollar Tree and Five Below. Shumsky talked about this area being the main concern for plastic bags littering the neighborhood.
Shumsky explained the reasoning to submitting the motion and that it is something he has been working on since his time with the School Committee.
“I have received dozens of phone calls, I have talked to dozens of residents, and frankly, I think it is just disgusting to see how much trash is littering the streets, especially bags. When you come into the city, you’re greeted what I call, trash ornaments hanging from the tree and I don’t think it’s a good look for the city. I think that taxpayers who live here should not have to be picking up trash from people who are careless, want to litter and who don’t care about the cleanliness of a city,” Shumsky said.
Ward 9 City Councilor Mary Beth Pniak-Costello applauded the efforts of the City Councilors who worked on this bill and hopes this with the trash problem in the city.
She said, “This is a great idea. I know that it’s for retail only but it’s the start of something positive for the city and maybe modified behavior of people when they see that there’s more litter being picked up and that it has now become a trash free city. This is the step in the right direction.”
The City Council unanimously approved the new ordinance stating how positive they think the impact will be.
This is not the first time neighbors and the City Council have discussed the plastic bag issues in the city as the discussion of implementing an ordinance has been going back to as far as 2016.
Laflamme discussed the long-awaited plastic bag ban.
He said, “We’ve been dealing with this for a long, long time. It’s been back and forth with Walmart with the Home Depot and all the big stores but I’m glad to see this passed tonight. I also want to say Walmart has been doing a great job in the last six months since we’ve brought them in. I’ve been going by there the last couple days; they’ve been pulling them out of the trees and they have people out there trying. This is something we had to do to help the community.”
