Smoking Ban at Beach Catches On

Five months after Solana Beach became the first California city to ban smoking on the beach, San Clemente has joined the movement -- and a coalition of anti-tobacco and environmental groups is pushing the idea in other cities along the coast.

On Tuesday, the Santa Monica City Council will consider an ordinance that would prohibit smoking on its beach and pier. In Los Angeles, council member Jack Weiss is working with the city attorney’s office and is close to drafting a similar law.

Meanwhile, anti-smoking activists say they have had discussions with officials from other coastal cities -- including San Diego, Manhattan Beach, Hermosa Beach, Huntington Beach and Newport Beach -- though they have received no commitments.

“As far as we’re concerned, this is a public health issue. Others see it as an environmental issue,” said Glenn Maddalon, executive director of the Orange County chapter of the American Lung Assn. “I would hope that, eventually, cities up and down the coast enact a ban on smoking on all the beaches.”

San Clemente council members voted 3 to 2 Tuesday night in favor of a smoking ban on the city’s beaches and pier. The vote came after several months of discussion, during which Mayor Susan Ritschel went from opposing the idea to supporting it.

“My initial reaction was that I didn’t want to see people’s rights taken away,” said Ritschel, whose mother survived a bout with lung cancer. “But I came around.... I have two children and I teach my kids that smoking is not good, not healthy. I couldn’t justify to my children not supporting a ban on smoking at our beaches.... I wouldn’t be surprised if more and more cities look at this.”

But some think the ban goes too far.

Council member G. Wayne Eggleston, who doesn’t smoke, said he voted against the measure because it was too restrictive. While he supports smoking restrictions in restaurants and bars, for the city to snuff out cigarettes on “four miles of open space is problematic.”

“Cigarettes,” he said, “are far less a threat than a government that dictates individual behavior.”

Many San Clemente residents favored the new law, though litter was often their prime concern.

“Overall, it’s better for the beaches, because people think the beach is an ashtray,” said Ray DeAntonio, manager at the Fisherman restaurant on the pier.

At the San Clemente-based Surfrider Foundation, a spokesman praised the ban but said the bigger problem was dealing with people who flick cigarettes from car windows. “It’s not going to stop all the cigarette butts getting to the beach,” said Chad Nelsen, the foundation’s environmental director.

Ritschel said the city would rely on voluntary compliance. The council earmarked $15,700 for no-smoking signs and cigarette receptacles in beach areas.

“We recognized that there would be a very large cost involved in trying to enforce this,” she said. “And I don’t want to see our lifeguards taken away from their job saving lives in the water.”

California has long been a leader in the campaign to stamp out smoking in public places -- from bars and restaurants to public buildings and parks.

Last year, Solana Beach in north San Diego County became the first California city with a beach smoking ban. Support came from anti-tobacco groups and health officials concerned about secondhand smoke, and environmentalists who decried the thousands of butts that fouled the sand.

A beach cleanup effort in San Clemente last year sponsored by the Costa Mesa-based Earth Resource Foundation yielded nearly 6,000 cigarette butts in two hours.

“If you vote against a ban, you’re supporting the big tobacco industry,” said foundation founder Stephanie Barger, who said her group has had discussions with officials in Huntington Beach and Newport Beach. “It’s up to citizens to push the other cities” to support similar bans.

Santa Monica’s proposed ordinance is in keeping with the city’s aggressive stance against public smoking. The City Council regulated workplace smoking before the state did. Last year, it banned smoking in city parks.

If passed, the latest ordinance would ban smoking on the beach and pier. It would also prohibit lighting up at waiting areas for public services, such as bus stops.

And it would expand on a recently enacted state law that bans smoking within 20 feet of the entrance to a public building by including exits and entrances.

Under the proposal, violators would be issued a citation that carries a $250 fine.

“Ours will be enforced,” said Deputy City Atty. Adam Radinsky.

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Times staff writer David Reyes contributed to this report.