The District’s bag tax has often been hailed as a massive success — so much so that our neighbors in Montgomery County citing it when installing their own version of a similar five-cent fee on disposable bags. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t scofflaws out there.

According to this report by Mike Coneen, 38 percent of businesses — 80 of the 208 inspected secretly by the D.C. government over the last 18 months — were not charging the five-cent fee on plastic bags. Upon re-inspection, about one-quarter were given $100 fines for not being in compliance with the law.

The findings certainly raise questions, like just how indicative that 38 percent non-compliance rate actually is. It’s certainly possible that the city just coincidentally hit on a particularly high set of businesses that happened to be ignoring the law — and without geographical and demographic information, we’re basically left to wonder. There’s also the matter of whether the non-compliance statistic is a bad thing (businesses should be following the law, after all), or a good thing (the District’s massive reduction in bag usage came even with so many scofflaws not encouraging reusable bags or collecting revenue). The truth, as usual, likely lies in the middle.