From the Evergreen State to the Emerald Isle

If Cordata residents were to visit the neighborhood Food Co-Op they may hear the sounds of 21-year-old David Loudon playing the works Rachmaninoff on his custom-made violin in hopes of earning enough tips to return to Dublin, Ireland.

Beginning in December 2011, Loudon spent 5 months backpacking through Dublin simply to see if his music would be enough to support his traveling. “I decided to go to Dublin specifically after I did some research online and found that Ireland has the most relaxed legislature with regards to busking or street performance,” he said.

A violinist since the age of 11, Loudon “busks” almost every day, especially at the Bellingham Co-Ops because “they’re the only ones who will let me,” he explained. “The trouble with playing in front of businesses is that it is only legal if you have the store's permission to play on their property.”

Although Loudon misses the friends he made while playing on Henry Street in Ireland, he still enjoys the people he sees in the Cordata neighborhood. “Since I began playing at the Cordata Co-op my favorite thing about it has been all the people that stop to talk to me that could hear me playing from the street,” he said. “I've had a lot of them thank me for playing where they live. It has been a real pleasure.”

Community Policing to Come to Bellingham?

                Bellingham could look forward to “community policing” according to the city’s new police chief, Clifford Cook, who described this method of patrolling as a partnership between the police and community members at this month’s Cordata Neighborhood Association meeting on February 12.

            The idea of community policing is to provide neighborhoods with extra eyes and ears by training residents to look for and report incidents in their area. “It demonstrates that we don’t just write tickets—we have hearts, too,” he said. After first being exposed to this approach in Fort Worth, Tex., Cook brought it with him to Vancouver, Wash. where citizens became a direct link between police and the city. Once lost due to budget cuts, Cook hopes to reintegrate a Citizen’s Patrol Program back into Bellingham to involve more people in their communities and empower them to take part in public safety. “Police come from the community; we are members of the community.”

Cordata Neighborhood Shops on Six Months After Plastic Bag Ban

Over Meridian, through the Cordata neighborhood and around the roundabouts shoppers make their way to the Cordata Community Food Co-Op—but not without reusable bags at hand. It has been six months since Bellingham put the Single Use Bag Ordinance or “bag ban” into effect and local employees say customers have responded well to the change.

 

“I think that people see the value in it and it’s definitely decreased our use of paper bags,” said co-op employee Nate Wright. “People are definitely using their own bags more than ever or just making due without one because they don’t really need it,” he said. “People have reacted, for the most part, positively to it.”

 

A “consumer-owned” company offering local and organic products, Wright said the Co-Op’s shoppers are among the minority of people who didn’t complain about the ban at the beginning. “For our customer base I think we’ve had a positive response to it,” he said. Typical customer complaints surround the 5 cent fee but are “nothing more than a grumble.”

 

Co-Op shopper Allie Tissot confessed that she is less supportive of the 5 cent fee, but she is not one to grumble about the ban. “I’m for it, honestly, because I don’t think [plastic bags] are necessary and they’re terrible for the environment,” she said.

 

Although she admitted it was difficult to adapt to the change when the ordinance first became effective in August 2012, the decrease in plastic bags in the environment is worth the challenge. “I was kind of irritated at first because it is a little inconvenient, but once you get used to it it’s nice.”

 

Across the street in Cordata Center, Cost Cutter employee Scott Edwards noticed the agreeable responses from customers as well. “It’s been a lot better than I thought. I thought I’d get a lot more negativity and people just would start revolting,”he said. “For the most part most people have been pretty receptive about it and bringing their own bags.”

 

Unlike the Co-Op, Cost Cutter customers are not “owners” of the company so Edwards was surprised that the store didn’t experience a greater financial impact. While other surrounding cities such as Lynden and Ferndale still offer plastic bags some customers decide to shop out of town, but that “didn’t really affect [finances] as much as I thought it would,” he said.

 

Meanwhile at the Co-Op, members were already accustomed to a life of reusable bags. Wright said the ban “hasn’t had any effect on us financially because we never used plastic bags. We’ve always offered paper bags so there was no financial offset for us there.” The store’s reason its original lack of plastic bags? “They were always seen as a single use item that ends up in landfills, never biodegrades,” he said.

 

Tissot agreed with the Co-Op’s decision to only provide paper bags and the city’s ban on plastic bags. “I mean they’re awful,” she said. When asked about whether or not other cities should adopt the ordinance she replied with a firm “Yes. I think more people should implement it...it’s not that hard to just bring reusable bags.”

 

Did They Pay for That?

According to Nate Wright of the Cordata Community Food Co-Op, since the Single-UsePlastic Carry Out Bag Ordinance went into effect “people, for the most part, have reacted positively to it.” Despite this the Co-Op’s downtown location did suffer another issue: theft. Wright explained that during the beginning of the ban the downtown Co-Op experienced customers leaving with unpaid merchandise. As the traditional plastic bag could no longer serve as an indication of who had already paid for their groceries, the problem escaladed “to the point where they actually asked people not to shop into their bags but to use a hand basket.” He added that since asking customers to do so the issue has since subsided.

Initially, some of the city’s intentions were to reduce waste and protect the environment by restricting the use of plastic bags. As a report by the Environment Washington Research & Policy Center stated, Bellingham contributed approximately 30 million of the 2 billion plastic bags Washington state consumers used every year before bag bans were enacted. However, the city also claimed that it was “taking a big step forward” in saving money through the ban as well. But if businesses become victims of theft as a result how is Bellingham saving money?

What policies could stores follow to avoid this problem? Leave your suggestions and comments below.

Click here to read more about the Environment Washington Research & Policy Center's research.

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From Whatcom Community College to the Community Garden, the CP provides up-to-date news and event coverage from the Cordata Neighborhood. Formed in 2010 and situated in the northern area of Bellingham, this rapidly-changing neighborhood features both residential and commercial life. Don’t be the last to receive the updates!