Restaurants and bars would have no longer been able to automatically dispense plastic straws under a proposed law that died Monday afternoon in a Colorado House committee.

The bill died at the request of the very representative who proposed it: Rep. Susan Lontine, D-Denver. That request came after the House Committee on Energy and Environment unanimously approved an amendment that would have allowed cities and counties to enforce their own regulations on the topic.

House Bill 1143 would have asked businesses not to offer patrons plastic straws unless specifically asked. Hospitals and drive through restaurants, among others, would have been exempt under the bill.

No enforcement language was included in the bill. Lontine said the measure was a way of encouraging businesses to act more conscientiously with non-recyclable straws, which often end up in oceans, harming natural habitats and wildlife.

“We’re simply asking for people to ask for a straw. ‘Upon request’ is what it means,” Lontine said. “It’s not a ban.”

Lontine estimated that 80 percent of waste in the world’s oceans originated in landlocked areas like Colorado. The bill was meant to encourage standardized behavior across the state and wouldn’t have stopped anyone from buying straws for themselves at stores.

Several spoke in favor of Lontine’s bill including Nick Hoover, manager of government affairs for the Colorado Restaurant Association.

“This is a reasoned and moderate approach that will reduce the amount of single-use straws used in the state of Colorado without putting undue burden on Colorado’s restaurants and bars,” Hoover said.

But others complained that the bill didn’t go far enough and should have banned the straws outright or backed up the law with an enforcement mechanism. Some on the committee asked why the bill was necessary at all and questioned why an organization like Hoover’s couldn’t ask its members to change their existing policies.

The most substantial criticism, however, was that the measure would remove local control over the matter. Under the bill’s proposed language, a single city would not have been permitted to ban straws outright.

So Rep. Lori Saine, R-Dacono, proposed an amendment that would have handed that power back to cities and counties, allowing them to enact regulations or bans of their own. The committee approved that amendment unanimously.

Saine’s amendment would have made it difficult for the measure to be implemented across the state, Lontine said, so she asked the committee to postpone the bill indefinitely, effectively killing the proposal.

Rep. Larry Liston, R-Colorado Springs, lamented Lontine’s request and commended her for proposing a bill that would have allowed restaurants and consumers to make their own decisions. He said he would have supported her measure if she hadn’t asked for it to be postponed.

“Your heart and mind were in the right place,” he said.