MORGAN PARK — County Fair Foods has decided to pay Chicago's 7-cent bag tax for customers.
The independent grocery store at 10800 S. Western Ave. in Morgan Park made the announcement on its Facebook page, owner Tom Baffes said Monday.
The news received more attention than anything the store had ever posted before on social media, he said.
The city's tax on disposable bags went into effect Feb. 1. Those behind the tax say it is meant to encourage customers to bring reusable bags into stores — sparing disposable bags from the landfill.
As for the 7-cent tax, a nickel winds up in the city's coffers, while the retailer keeps the remainder. Plastic grocery-style bags wholesale for fewer than two cents; paper bags favored by boutiques wholesale for upward of 15 cents, according to shopkeepers.
Baffes said he'll continue to encourage customers in Beverly and Morgan Park to bring their own bags and a sign in the parking lot reminds shoppers to do just that. However, he feared some might take their business to neighboring suburbs to avoid the tax.
He added that a statewide tax on disposable bags would level the playing field, but Chicago's tax puts him at a disadvantage against stores in suburban Evergreen Park, Merrionette Park, Oak Lawn and elsewhere.
"We just made an executive decision that we were going to pick up the tab for the bags. ... We just felt it was the right thing to do," said Baffes, who owns the store along with his father, Bill.
Baffes also observed customers closely in the days following the bag tax. Certainly more customers were bringing in reusable bags. In fact, he said his plastic bag output went from 25 cases a week to twelve cases.
Each case has 1,000 plastic bags, said Baffes, adding that if those numbers hold he'll be losing about $840 per week. That said, he also promised not to increase prices in order to pay for the absorption of the new tax.
Baffes said he realizes that more plastic bags might end up in the trash as a result. But his observation has been that customers without bags tend to be folks just stopping in quickly to pick up a few essentials.
Many of these same shoppers would rather walk out of the store with an arm full of loose groceries than pay the tax, said Baffes, who feared turning off same customers when it came to shopping trips down the road.
"We felt like it was starting to hurt our business a little bit," said Baffes, adding that he hasn't heard of any other stores agreeing to pick up the tax.
Richard Calhoun of Auburn Gresham sat patiently in his SUV while his wife shopped in County Fair. He always brings a bag to avoid paying the new tax, but he still wasn't happy about what he sees as a money grab.
"It's just the politicians. It is stupid. It hurts the little guy," Calhoun said.
He said most plastic bags are supposed to be recyclable, which should keep bags out of the landfill anyhow. He also believes that the tax will lead to more shuttered shops and storefronts.
'It puts Chicago at more of a disadvantage than the suburbs," Calhoun said. "It doesn't do anything but hurt the little guy and the little stores."
