That effort to ban plastic bags at grocery stores statewide was voted down in the state Senate late Tuesday, according to CNN.

The upper house voted down the ban, which would have also applied to convenience stores and drugstores, 21 to 14, pushing the pause button on a bill that passed the lower house in June. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger was reported to have had his pen at the ready if the bill reached his desk. The bag-ban effort was even the recent subject of a mockumentary on YouTube.

Santa Monica-based Assemblywoman Julia Brownley, who authored the original bill, was bummed:

“This is a sad day for California,” Brownley stated. “Communities across the state were waiting for the state to adopt a uniform, statewide ban on single-use bags before they adopt their own ordinances. The state failed them.”

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