San Francisco Bay Area legislator reintroduces paper slip initiative in ‘Skip the Slip’ bill

SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) — In the future, if you want to receive a paper receipt for any transaction, you may have to ask for it. Paper receipts, issued only upon request, are part of legislation reintroduced Thursday by San Francisco Assemblyman Phil Ting.

The goal of AB 1347 is to encourage waste reduction and limit the potential health impact that is claimed to come from chemically coated paper sheets.

The move even received support from late-night host Jimmy Kimmel, who named a company known for handing out wildly long receipts.

“That’s right, CVS, I’m talking to you,” he said during a monologue. “I believe the receipt for a pack of gum shouldn’t be high enough to ride Space Mountain, and finally, someone is doing something about it.”

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Thing is behind the effort, bringing back “Skip the Slip”.

Once integral to any deal, Thing told reporters that receipts waste valuable natural resources and endanger the health of consumers and retail workers who are exposed to the toxins that coat them.

To demonstrate how wasteful they are, Ting dressed up an employee with a life-size receipt.

“3 million trees, 10 billion gallons of water, 302 million pounds of waste in the back,” he said, pointing to data from nonprofit Green America. The numbers indicate usage per year.

“Because they are not recycled or reused,” Thing added. “There is no circular economy around them.”

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Randy Musterer, owner of Sushi Confidential in downtown San Jose, said that once an order is placed, multiple tickets are immediately printed, alerting the kitchen and bar.

“We have three tickets that are popping up at this time,” Musterer described. “Then, at the end, when we close the customer, we print out two or three tickets — the itemized ticket, the customer copy, and the restaurant copy.”

Musterer isn’t surprised by the push to limit the printing of long paper receipts, but he’s adamant that state-run restaurants and retailers give customers choice.

Fortunately, he says, the pandemic has forced most business owners to go digital and adopt contactless interactions and paperless transactions.

Lindsey Castagnola, a Los Angeles resident and sushi regular, told ABC7 News: “For me, it always felt like a waste of paper. send by email.”

AB 1347 has literally put the choice of receiving a paper receipt in the hands of customers.

While committee hearings are expected to begin in the spring, Musterer said attention needs to be given to smaller establishments that don’t have a digital point of sale infrastructure to keep up with the moment.

“They will have to look for other POS companies to be able to register and pay for this equipment, this use of software,” he said. “So it might be an extra charge for some small family and pop restaurants.”

Learn more about Assm. Thing’s new law, click here.

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