Council Adopts Skip the Stuff Ordinance

City Council · Meeting of April 28, 2026

Watertown City Council voted to adopt the Skip the Stuff waste-reduction ordinance. The 9-0 roll call bars restaurants from automatically including plastic utensils, straws and condiment packets with takeout orders, with a six-month grace period before enforcement. Committee chair Nicole Gardner called it a "simple common sense policy." Council President Mark S.

Sideris separately told the council Watertown police "do not enforce federal immigration law" and "do not detain people at the request of ICE," and said a multilingual rights brochure from Police Chief Hanrahan would be posted at the library and clerk's office. Councilors also accepted a state law letting the city's eight wine-and-malt liquor license holders apply to upgrade to all-alcohol licenses, though City Manager George Proakis and City Attorney Rich confirmed the upgrade is non-transferable by statute. The council transferred $29,200 from its reserve account to cover elected officials' salaries.

In the full story:

• The complete report — 1,023 words

Source: the City Council meeting of April 28, 2026, reported from the official video recording and transcript.

Checked against the record: before publication this article was automatically compared with the meeting transcript. It was corrected where it differed.