World No-Tobacco Day hits home

Jenny Marder

Pop quiz: What do Duke Ellington, Sammy Davis Jr., Walt Disney, Frank

Zappa, Bette Davis, George Harrison and Lucille Ball have in common?

Answer: They all died from smoking-related diseases.

Their names and pictures hung amid a long list of celebrities on a

memorial at the entrance of the World No-Tobacco Day fair at

Huntington Beach Pier Plaza Saturday.

The health fair -- sponsored by two Orange County-based

anti-tobacco groups, the Tobacco Use Prevention Coalition and Stop

Tobacco Abuse of Minors Pronto -- was aimed at educating people about

the dangers of tobacco.

The fair came less than a week after the Huntington Beach City

Council gave preliminary approval to ban smoking at the pier and city

beaches. Beach smoking bans have already been approved in Santa

Monica, San Clemente, Los Angeles, Oceanside and most recently,

Sydney, Australia.

“Maybe this is the big wave, the sea change we were waiting for,”

said Jim Walker, director of Stop Tobacco Use of Minors Pronto and

organizer of the festival.

Walker estimates that as many as 2,000 people attended through the

fair, which was held from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturday. People

overwhelmingly supported the group’s message, he said.

“Even smokers come by and say invariably, keep up the great work,”

Walker said. “Most smokers, they know better than anyone that this

stuff is killing them.”

Displays showed cancerous lungs and listed the diseases smoking

can lead to: voice box, lung, kidney and uterine cancer as well as

circulatory problems, emphysema and congestive heart failure.

A group of 17-year-old girls from Cypress’ Oxford Academy manned a

booth in which they tried to educate others, especially children and

teens, about the dangers of cigarette smoking.

“I don’t understand why people do it,” Kim Doan said. “People

think that smoking can make you look cool. I don’t think so.”

The girls are pushing to make Disneyland smoke-free.

“Secondhand smoke kills people, too,” Doan said. “So whatever it

is, it’s not good.”

Walker’s main goal is to spread awareness about the dangers of

smoking and to gain support for smoking bans at the beaches.

At a massive beach cleanup in Surf City on March 31, four large

trash bags filled almost exclusively with cigarette butts was

collected in one day, he said.