Smoking Banned in City Parks

The City Council voted 3-2 Tuesday in support of an ordinance to impose a smoking ban in public parks, expanding an existing prohibition against lighting up on city beaches.

Councilmember Toni Iseman, who proposed the ban, said that aside from the ill effects of secondhand smoke, the shelf-life of cigarette filters is enough cause for the ban. "If you walk Heisler Park, it's really distracting to see that people think nothing of leaving their cigarette filters there," she said.

Mayor Kelly Boyd, a smoker, opposed the ban for two reasons. "Number one is enforcement," he said. "Who's going to be running around the parks watching to see if you're smoking? We're becoming the town of signs of 'Don't Do.' We're putting bans on everything," he said, citing other beach prohibitions that now include dogs, smash-ball and Frisbee.

The second reason, he said, is the poor economy. "I don't spend a lot of time in the parks. I can sit on my deck and enjoy the view," he said, "but being a tourist community, how embarrassing is it for a police officer to come up to you and say you can't smoke here? With the economy as bad as it is, we can't afford to make a tourist not want to come back."

Elizabeth Pearson joined Boyd in casting a dissenting vote.

Adam Bovie, a diver from Anaheim, told the council he found a blanket wedged in the rocks underwater that had 50 to 60 cigarette butts wrapped up in it along with three quarts of marine motor oil that he said he properly disposed of.

"I don't have a problem with someone exercising their constitutional right to smoke and pollute their lungs and kill themselves but when I have to remove them from my regulator, that's a problem," said Bovie. "Wind carries light cigarette butts a long way."

As Boyd called for the vote, he added, "Right after this, Toni, we're taking a cigarette break."