Like to down your restaurant drink with a colorful plastic straw? Starting Thursday, you won't get one in New Jersey unless you specifically ask for it.

It's the first step in the Garden State's incremental plastic ban, which the governor signed into law a year ago. Foodservice businesses are allowed to keep a supply of single-use plastic straws on hand -- and stores can keep selling packages of them or pre-packaged items like juice boxes that include them going forward.

Gov. Phil Murphy signed the bill into law last November, a measure his office at the time described as the strongest such ban in the country. More intense components of the law go into effect in the spring, targeting plastic and paper single-use bags as well as disposable food containers and cups made out of polystyrene foam.

Starting May 4, stores, including retail, grocery, pharmacy and food businesses, are banned from selling single-use plastic carryout bags or giving them to customers. Grocery stores larger than 2,500 square feet can't sell single-use paper carryout bags and instead may provide or sell only reusable carryout bags.

To be considered a reusable carryout bag, the bag must be made of polypropylene fabric, PET nonwoven fabric, nylon, cloth, hemp product, or other washable fabric; and have stitched handles. It must also be designed for multiple uses.

Also beginning May 4, restaurants can't sell or offer any polystyrene foam food service products or sell or provide any food served in such a product.

The following products will be exempt for an additional two years after May 2022:  

Noncompliance comes with a warning for a first offense and fines up to $1,000 per day for the second offense. Third and subsequent violations carry penalties up to $5,000 a day. Learn more about the plastic law here.