cylinders packed with 13,000 cigarette butts, collected in just one hour at Newport Beach by a group of about 100 children.
Tourists to the Santa Monica Pier on the gloomy June morning had mixed reactions to the proposal. Lanetta Strever, 35, from Burbank, felt the law was a good idea.
“I don’t like the smoking. It’s a family thing,” she said. “I’ve got three little ones.”
Joyce Mark, 50, a former smoker from Riverside that came to the beach with her two daughters and three grandchildren, agreed trash on the beach was a problem, but said the smoking ban was a violation of personal rights.
“Smokers pay the same taxes as nonsmokers,” Mark said.
As to enforcement, officials admitted policing likely would be scant.
“My belief is that this will be largely self-enforcing,” said Koretz. “I can’t tell you the last time I saw somebody smoking in a restaurant — because everybody knows that’s the law.”
Added Jim Walker from Stop Tobacco Abuse of Minors Pronto, “Most smokers are not bad people. It’s just the habit that is bad.”
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on June 19, 2004. Read the original PDF.