(CA) Senate committee rejects beach smoking bans

[CShine]

SACRAMENTO (AP) - An attempt to snuff out smoking on California's city, county and state-owned beaches was rejected by a state Senate committee after several Democrats refused to vote. The bill by Assemblyman Paul Koretz, D-West Hollywood, got only two votes Tuesday in the Natural Resources Committee. Three lawmakers opposed it and the rest abstained. A narrower bill by Assemblyman Leland Yee, D-San Francisco, that would ban smoking at California's 64 state beaches also failed, on a 3-3 vote. Both bills needed at least five votes to clear the nine-member committee.

Yee said his proposal ran into opposition from senators who didn't want a total ban on beach smoking. He suggested an amendment allowing smoking in beach parking lots might pick up enough votes to get the bill out next week.

"I'm going to work feverishly to try to find an accommodation to get members to support it, but I'm not going to compromise the purpose of the bill, ... that cigarette butts not be used to build sand castles."

Koretz's bill would make it an infraction punishable by a $250 fine to smoke at a beach owned by the state or a local government. However, it would allow cities and counties to enact tougher penalties for smoking on their beaches. The penalty under Yee's bill for smoking at a state beach would be a $100 fine.

http://www.sacbee.com/state_wire/story/9747947p-10670919c.html

[Dookus]

1. Good

they should enforce laws against littering, not smoking in the great outdoors.

[goddess40]

2. Not good

Did you ever sit on a beach and pick up a handful of sand? It's full of cigarette filters. Filthy filters. They do not biodegrade. I vote for a ban on smoking on beaches.

[rinsd]

3. And that is called littering...

I agree its disgusting. I hate it when people even throw their butts in the streets because San Diego has a sewer system that just dumps crap in the ocean.

But if you're going to task police to enforce a law like a smoking ban. Why not task officers now for litter patrol?

The second hand smoke argument fails in an open air area with wind.

[starroute]

9. All that wind does is blow other people's smoke your way

I don't know how many times I've had to pack up and move my beach blanket because some smokers parked upwind of me.

Smoking is particularly offensive in places where you're trying to open your lungs and breath in the fresh air. The smell seems to carry much further than on city streets.

I'd love it if smoking were banned in all natural settings.

[Dookus]

13. sorry, that's not likely to happen

despite the protest of the anti-smoke nazis.

If the worst pollution you face is the occasional waft of cigarette smoke on the beach, you're a very lucky person indeed.

In fact, if you've had to move your blanket more times than you can count, you're probably insane. Cigarette smoke is not plutonium - a minor whiff won't give you cancer.

[brook]

6. Rather a cigarette butt...

than a used Pamper, dog crap or beer bottle.

Beach towns (like mine) would do well to position trash barrels
appropriately -and maybe hire some bored, under-employed teenagers to patrol the beach for litter and litterers.

I, for one, am sick of nanny-laws.

[Dookus]

12. umm...

that's littering.

I said specifically the laws against littering should be enforced. The problem is not people smoking on the beach - it's people leaving their butts on the beach.

[rinsd]

4. Agreed (nt)

[Hekate]

5. No littering, nothing lit in high-fire zones...

I'm a non-smoker (not an ex-smoker) and grateful for the social changes that have smokers excusing themselves from my home to smoke outside. Likewise, smoke-free workplaces and airplanes make sense to me -- all the more so since I discovered that air-conditioned buildings and all planes simply recycle their air instead of capturing fresh air from outdoors. No wonder I felt like death warmed over after a non-stop flight from Athens to New York -- jammed in a jumbo jet for untold hours with about 400 people all chain-smoking.

Having said that, I would like to add that there just has to be some common sense and compassion here. Tobacco remains a legal drug, and tobacco addiction is its by-product. Deal with it, folks, and not by outlawing yet another drug. Try outlawing all tobacco advertising instead. Eventually a generation of the addicts would die out and not be replaced in any substantial numbers.

We have anti-littering laws. We have stringent seasonal open-fire laws in forests and chaparral west of the Rockies. Enforce those instead.

Hekate

[Bandit]

8. Deal with it, folks, and not by outlawing yet another drug.

I don't want to "Deal With It" and I don't want to outlaw it either. Just in Public. Masterbation is not illegal but it sure as hell is in Public. It doesn't even hurt anyone. Smoking should be kept in private quarters IMHO. More people do not smoke than do, so why should the minority force their filthy habit onto others in public? I would rather watch someone masterbate than smoke. just my $.02 worth.

[Trillo]

7. I've found used syringes on the beach,

very dangerous if one was to be stepped on and the person who'd used it had a disease. Maybe all diabetics should be prohibited from injecting while on the beach. <sarcasm>

[joefree1]

10. No fat people on Beaches

And no wimps while we're at. Have you ever had to watch a blubbo put lotion on? What about all the food related garbage?

And while we're making up laws up for every freaking thing when do we have to start wearing styrofoam suits when we leave the house?

Deaths-Leading Causes
(Data are for U.S. in 2001)
Number of deaths for leading causes of death

Heart Disease: 700,142
Cancer: 553,768
Stroke: 163,538
Chronic lower respiratory diseases: 123,013
Accidents (unintentional injuries): 101,537
Diabetes: 71,372
Influenza/Pneumonia: 62,034
Alzheimer's disease: 53,852
Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome, and nephrosis: 39,480
Septicemia: 32,238
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/lcod.htm


Seating now available in the Smoking Section:
Politics, humor, death and the Devil - http://www.eDiablo.com

[Ernesto]

11. A simple query:

Everyone knows about the huge medical cost impact that smoking has on society at large. But just how much does the ciggy butt clean up cost us? I think all of here in this forum (smokers included) know that smokers seem to assume some devine right to drop their trash (butts) where ever they are.... Has anyone looked at the over all clean up cost impact for this disgusting behavior?..... One thing that really cracks me up is to watch "thoughtful" smokers being very careful to step on their butts to prevent a fire hazard, I surmise, while leaving their crap for someone else to clean up.

[Dookus]

14. hey

I smoke. I think we should have ashtrays everywhere. Many other countries I've visited do.

I'm amazed that people can walk through an urban setting, filled with car pollution, and complain about a whiff of cigarette smoke. I have no problem with outlawing smoking in restaurants. I think smoking in the workplace should be banned. But if you walk down a street and get a whiff of my butt, it's meaningless to you. The car exhaust you're inhaling is infinitely worse.

[Dookus]

15. What exactly is the cost of smoking

on "society at large"?

I've seen studies that show smokers pay more than their fair share. We're taxed insanely, and we tend to die younger, easing the burden on the health care system and Social Security.

No... smokers don't have a negative financial impact on society.