Day One of Toronto’s five-cent fee for single-use plastic shopping bags may have rattled some people, but Dewan Siddiqur was not one of them.
As required by the City of Toronto’s new plastic bag bylaw, Siddiqur had a notice posted in his shop, Overlea Halal Meat at East York Town Centre in Thorncliffe, and was charging his customers a nickel a bag.
Their reaction?
“Most people are OK. Some are angry.”
But restrictions on plastic bags are nothing startling to Siddiqur.
“In Bangladesh they’ve been banned for seven years,” he said. “Totally banned.”
Siddiqur’s only quibble: Some customers have told him that other stores are not charging five cents for a bag. He hasn’t checked out the claims, but figures if the law is there, it should be applied equally:
“The law is a good one; everyone should obey it.”
The extent of the bylaw is still filtering through to some.
Danny Izzard, 79, insisted he hadn’t paid anything for the two bags he had just received at Dollarama.
“They don’t charge for bags here,” he said — then checked his receipt and discovered that he’d paid 10 cents for the two bags.
“They charge too much for everything, and they shouldn’t be charging tax on everything,” Izzard said.
