[PHOTOS] Plastic Ban Mixed Bag for Rye Merchants

“Do you want a bag?” Aly Powers asked her customer at on Purchase Street. “No thank you,” says her female customer who leaves the store with a smile. Adapting to the plastic bag ban that took effect in the City of Rye today has made “no difference” on their business as they have long used paper bags. 

But is an entirely different kind of business and the new law is having an entirely different impact. Not having plastic bags is putting a wrinkle in the way owner Martha McGuire serves her customers. 

“It’s never going to work well for us,” McGuire says as she sells lottery tickets and rings up lunch customers. “It’s a food issue, paper bags leak.”

McGuire says health laws mandate use of plastic bags for certain types of purchases like meat but wishes she could have keep at least one type of plastic bag for her customers, many of whom are buying package meals on the go. 

“We‘re going to have to train about 98 percent of our customers [to switch from plastic bags] and our staff too,” she said.

One way they’re making it work is by selling reusable, insulated bags- “You can use them to keep hot food hot, cold food cold…and you can take them to the beach,” McGuire points out helpfully. And the store is also giving away reusable bags feting the store’s 75th anniversary.

“It’s going to be tough getting used to,” McGuire said. “But we’re going to make it work.”