Session Laws

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives in General Court assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:

SECTION 1. Section 323 of chapter 94 of the General Laws, as appearing in the 1990 Official Edition, is hereby amended by adding the following paragraph:-

(i) The obligations to accept or take empty beverage containers and to pay the refund value and handling fees for such containers as described in paragraphs (b), (c), (d) and (e) shall apply only to containers originally sold in the commonwealth as filled beverage containers. Any person who tenders to a dealer, distributor, redemption center or bottler more than ten cases of twenty-four empty beverage containers each, which he knows or has reason to know were not originally sold in the commonwealth as filled beverage containers, for the purpose of obtaining a refund value or handling fee, shall be subject to the enforcement action and civil penalties set forth in section three hundred and twenty-seven. For the purpose of this section and section three hundred and twenty-seven, the term person shall include any individual, partnership, corporation, or other combination or entity.

SECTION 2. Section 327 of said chapter 94, as so appearing, is hereby amended by inserting after the word "full", in line 11, the following words:- ; provided, however, that any person, including a bottler, distributor, redemption center or dealer, who violates the provisions of paragraph (i) of section three hundred and twenty-three shall be subject to a civil penalty of the greater of one hundred dollars for each container or twenty-five thousand dollars for each tender of containers.