Not an issue for the law

Effective laws, regardless of their merit, are those that can be

enforced effectively.

An Orange County-based environmental group’s efforts to convince

coastal cities to ban smoking on their beaches certainly has merit,

but its practicality is questionable.

Earth Resource Foundation has cited the surplus of butts on

beaches as a problem grave enough for city governments to add a new

law, but do we need another law that lacks a backbone? Littering is

already illegal on the beach, but beachgoers leaving anything behind

-- from cigarette butts to bags of leftovers picked through by

seagulls -- usually leave the sand unscathed and unpunished.

Will the same officials who enforce beach littering laws enforce

the new anti-smoking law as judiciously?

Few reasonable people would likely say they support cigarette

butts on the beach. And city leaders, including Councilwoman

Elizabeth Pearson, are right to point out how disgusting and

polluting dropped cigarettes are.

But maybe there are more reasonable solutions that don’t require

adding laws. Stephanie Barger, executive director and founder of the

Earth Resource Foundation, has suggested that cities provide

appropriate receptacles for butts on beaches, since some smokers fear

starting fires in trash cans. These would have to be convenient,

however, as Surfrider Foundation chapter chairman Rick Wilson pointed

out.

Perhaps Laguna Beach officials could raise littering fines, post

some notices of the increase on the beach and pay for new receptacles

with the earnings. This is, of course, contingent upon the city

making greater efforts to enforce its litter laws.

The beach, unlike a restaurant or bar, is an expansive place that

allows a lot of activity to go unseen. Enforcing the ban would almost

certainly be much more difficult at the beach.

Further, where will smokers go if they can’t go outside? Barger

also cites secondhand smoke as a problem at the beach, but secondhand

smoke is a problem wherever one finds a smoker. Smoking is still

legal, and until it isn’t, an effort to single out the littering

smokers deserves to be made before writing a law that punishes them

all.