Smoking ban takes effect on city sand

Alicia Robinson

The sun was high and bright Thursday afternoon, and one of the only

things marring the beauty of the shore was a scattering of cigarette

butts in the sand.

A smoking ban on the city’s beaches and piers that went into

effect Thursday is expected to change that.

The Newport Beach City Council officially passed the smoking ban

in September. City workers put “no smoking” decals onto about 300

existing signs Thursday that spell out rules for the beaches and

piers, and new signs went up in other areas such as Inspiration and

Lookout points, City Manager Homer Bludau said.

Receptacles for cigarette disposal have been ordered and will

arrive later.

“We’re going to phase into enforcement and just try and make sure

people are aware of the new ban and where people can smoke,” Bludau

said.

One person celebrating the beach smoking ban was Caroline

Wilkinson, a junior at Newport Harbor High School and president of

the school’s Earth Resource Club, which lobbied the city to adopt the

ban.

“We’re really proud of ourselves, and we’re really happy that

Newport decided to go smoke-free and help the environment,” Wilkinson

said. “The cigarettes get washed into the ocean, and then the fish

eat them, and we eat the fish.... If you think about it, that’s kind

of disgusting.”

The students’ efforts took beach smoking from being a litter issue

to a clean-air issue, said Stephanie Barger, executive director of

Earth Resource Foundation, a Costa Mesa-based environmental group

that sponsors school clubs and other community programs.

She expects the ban to be a success with the combined force of

other coastal cities, including San Clemente and Laguna Beach, which

have banned smoking at their beaches.

“People are going to know there’s a consistent message out there

to beachgoers,” Barger said. “It’s going to be consistent that when

you go to the beach, you do not smoke.”

The Earth Resource Foundation has organized a beach cleanup

Saturday targeting cigarette litter, and Barger hopes to find fewer

cigarette butts on the beach when it’s cleaned next.

“This cleanup is going to be our baseline for future cleanups,”

she said. “If we find the same amount of cigarettes or more

cigarettes, then we’re going to go back and look at our education

process, and part of that education process is enforcement.”

Citations for beach smoking will carry fines of $100 for the first

offense, $200 for the second, and $500 for the third offense, but

police won’t heavily enforce the ban.

“We expect a 30-day conditioning period, and our officers will

have a tendency to warn people,” Newport Beach Police Sgt. Steve

Shulman said. “After that, it will be a judgmental thing whether or

not people get citations for it.”

On Thursday, only one smoker was in sight, and he was on the

sidewalk next to the sand, where smoking is still allowed.

Several beachgoers greeted the new regulation with ambivalence

rather than unqualified enthusiasm.

“I’m a nonsmoker, so I prefer not to be around smoke, and I don’t

like in the summer when you sit down in the sand and there’s

everyone’s cigarette butts,” said Michael Young, of Lake Forest, who

was relaxing on a bench on the Newport Pier. “On the other hand, I

think we’re inching closer to legislating everything.”

Tasha Haywood, vacationing with her family from Gilbert, Ariz.,

said she isn’t crazy about cigarette litter on the ground, but she

wasn’t sure if a ban would result in cleaner beaches.

“I don’t care if they smoke, if they’d stash their butts in a safe

place,” she said.

* ALICIA ROBINSON covers business, politics and the environment.

She may be reached at (949) 764-4330 or by e-mail at

[email protected].

-- Staff writer Marisa O’Neil contributed to this story.