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A ban on plastic bags at Los Angeles grocery stores received preliminary approval today from the L.A. City Council.

Plastic bags at Los Angeles grocery stores would be a thing of the past under a proposal preliminarily approved today by the Los Angeles City Council – making it the closest the city has even been to a full ban on single-use bags.

The council voted 13-1 to start the legal footwork needed to ban single-use plastic bags. If the ban is eventually approved, it would give a six-month grace period to grocery stores that are 10,000-square-feet in size or have at least $2 million in sales. Smaller stores would have one year to put the ban in place.

Under the proposal, paper bags would cost 10 cents a piece one year after the ban is implemented. After two years, city staff would return with a report on the effectiveness of reducing waste from single-use bags.

The ban would only apply to grocery stores and would not include the smaller plastic bags patrons use for fruits, vegetables and meats.