City to Broaden Smoking Ban to Public Areas

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By Cassandra Reinhart | LB Indy

The Laguna Beach City Council snuffed out both ends of two different smoking issues at its meeting Tuesday night.

The first presented the council with a failing “F” grade from the American Lung Association, sparking the city to tighten its existing smoking ban ordinance to include fines, shared housing areas and the use of electronic cigarettes and vape pens.

“It’s not a report to say you did a bad job with your policies in protecting peoples health,” said Ravi Choudhuri, advocacy manager for the American Lung Association of Orange County.  “It is just a reminder there is something more that we can do.”

The city is one of 31 Orange County cities receiving a failing grade from the organization. Only three cities, Laguna Woods, Laguna Hills, and Santa Ana passed. Choudhuri says those cities impose steep fines for smoking where prohibited, implement local tobacco retailer licenses and regulate the air in shared spaces of multi-unit housing.  Laguna Beach banned smoking in public workplaces in 1985. Since then, the city has widened the ban to include public parks, beaches, and hazardous fire areas.  But it’s not enough.

Mayor Toni Iseman described a plea for help from an Arch Beach Heights father whose 3-year-old son has asthma. Smoke from a neighbor who lit up on his front balcony would trigger an asthma attack. “And he refused to give up his cigarettes on his balcony. We were without recourse,” Iseman said.

Among many findings of a 2016 survey 75 percent of Laguna Beach residents are behind stricter smoking laws in public places, noted Ryan Hallett, a city analyst. New challenges include the voter approved Prop. 64, legalizing recreational marijuana use and limited cultivation for adults 21, and the popularity of “vape” smoking (electronic cigarettes), he said.

“Orange County is one of the hubs of the whole country for distributing vapes and vape products,” Choudhuri told the council.  “This is an opportunity for not just Laguna Beach but for all surrounding cities to protect our health.”

Prop. 64 allows adults 21 and over to use marijuana legally in private homes and private businesses and also allows residents to grow up to six plants in a secure area of their home.

In calling for an ordinance that would ban use of tobacco in public places, the council would effectively also ban use of marijuana in public areas.

Because the state will begin issuing licenses to businesses wishing to sell or cultivate marijuana in early 2018, the council interceded now and voted Tuesday to draft an ordinance prohibiting the sale, distribution or cultivation of marijuana within city limits.

“When we voted on this a few years ago the science was very different than it is now, and it indicates it is toxic and I would include marijuana in that as well,” council member Steve Dicterow said.

Mayor Pro tem Kelly Boyd repeatedly pointed out the difficulty of enforcing tighter regulations. “We see 6 million people a year come to this community,” Boyd said.  “There are so many out of town people, Europeans, Asians that come to this community to visit, and they don’t know the rules.  If we start citing everybody everyday, we will have to add another 100 police everyday.”

Choudhuri said putting the rules on the books will embolden members of the public who support the ban. “We want to give them the power to say ‘there is a policy in place in the city that says you are not allowed to smoke here. Please, can you stop?’ ”

The council asked the city staff to come back with a recommendation for a stricter ban on smoking as well as input on enforcement plans from police.

“I don’t want to be one of those 31 cities,” council member Rob Zur Schmeide said.  “I want to be one of the other cities where they are saying, ‘they did it down in Laguna’.”

In other news, the City Council voted to name an as yet undetermined public space after longtime resident Arnold Hano.

Hano is known as a novelist and journalist, best known for his sports biographies, including the critically acclaimed non-fiction work, “A Day In the Bleachers,” made into a documentary film. Locally, he is known for his activism, famously leading the campaign to halt high-rise hotel development along Coast Highway. He has lived in Laguna Beach since 1955 with his wife, Bonnie.

Hano was uncharacteristically absent, but had signaled his distaste for the idea with the mayor.

In championing the idea, Council member Steve Dicterow described Hano’s devoted participation in civic life as both influential and inspirational. He serves as “the quintessential role model for a democracy. There’s no one who should have that honor more.

“And I’d like to do it while he can still see it,” Dicterow said.

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1 COMMENT

  1. Smoking ban absolutely useless unless backed up by the bite of a citation($$$$). Ban has been in full effect for our beaches…yet people still smoke on the beach, on the stairs to the beach and at the top of the stairs to the beach.

    Take a stroll to any of our lovely sandy sites and count the cigarette butts everywhere….or watch as smokers snuff out their death stick and cover it in the sand.

    Signs don’t do the job. Laguna Beach needs a dedicated unit to patrol beaches to cite those who disregard the ban of smoking….and shell/creature taking(ask the Tide Docents about the public’s replies to our pleas to stop that…), glass and alcohol as well.

    C’mon people! It’s simple: No Smoking on the Beach or a FINE!

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