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Asking customers to re-use their straws also poses dilemmas, he said. Given that consumption of bubble tea often happens spontaneously, is it realistic to expect that customers would carry their straws with them all the time?

And what happens when you’re done with your straw? “Are you supposed to carry a sticky and wet straw?” he asked.

If the city moves forward with the ban, Huang said it’ll be critical for the city to do further consultation with vendors. A city spokeswoman says the city intends to do just that.

In Toronto, where some restaurants recently banded together to launch a campaign to eliminate the use of plastic straws under the banner #stopsuckingToronto, Shaun Leong, who owns a franchise store belonging to The Alley bubble tea chain, said he is definitely concerned about the waste his store produces but hasn’t found a suitable alternative to plastic straws.

“Other drinks you can drink without a straw. With bubble tea it’s particularly difficult,” he said. “We’re not really sure where it’s going to go if a ban was installed.”

Photo by Ben Nelms for National Post

Perhaps, he said, the solution will come from Taiwan, which earlier this year announced a sweeping ban on single-use plastic straws, takeout cups and plastic bags by 2030, as part of a crackdown on marine pollution.

Alex Jiang, B.C. general manager for the Sharetea bubble tea chain, said Tuesday he wonders if customers will be willing to break old habits. Straws and bubble tea go hand in hand like chopsticks and Asian food, he said.

“It’s very hard to change it,” he said.

That said, Jiang said some preliminary discussions have taken place with factories in Asia to investigate the possibility of manufacturing reusable cups and straws.

Emerging from the Sharetea store across from City Hall Tuesday, customer Gail Kakino said she’d have no problem reusing straws, as she is already in the habit of taking them home, washing them and storing them.

But fellow customer Nancy Ho said she’d be open to the idea on one condition: “If we bring our own straw, we’d have to get a discount.”

• Email: dquan@postmedia.com | Twitter: dougquan