Tonight's Brookline Town Meeting to consider Styrofoam cup, take-out container ban for restaurants

By Brock Parker, Globe Correspondent

Brookline's Special Town Meeting will convene at 7 p.m. tonight to consider a warrant that includes a proposal to ban the use of polystyrene food and beverage containers and some plastic shopping bags by local businesses.

Another article would allow selectmen to petition Beacon Hill for 11 additional liquor pouring licenses for local restaurants. Under state law, the town can issue 63 full liquor licenses for restaurants, and the town has issued all but one of those licenses.

The fall session, which will meet in Brookline High’s auditorium, will tackle a total of 17 warrant articles.

Town Meeting member Nancy Heller proposed the article that would prohibit the use of disposable polystyrene (also known by its trademarked name, Styrofoam) for take-out food and beverages packaged on the premises of food service establishments. Heller has said she proposed the ban based on health and environmental concerns about the material.

Town Meeting members Andrew Fischer and Clint Richmond have spearheaded the effort behind the warrant article that would require retail establishments to use compostable, marine-degradable shopping bags instead of disposable plastic bags. Reusable bags and recyclable paper bags could also be used under the proposal, which was first proposed by a former Brookline resident, Jessica Arconti.

The Special Town Meeting’s warrant and other information is posted on the town’s website, www.brooklinema.gov.