More smoking issues, no butts about it

PETER BUFFA

You can do a lot of things at the beach. You can swim. You can surf.

You can look for things.

You can watch the waves, get a tan, walk the dog, or my personal

favorite, lay there like a beached whale.

But if the beach is a beach in Newport Beach, you may not, repeat,

not, at any time, for any reason, smoke.

Along with San Clemente, Huntington Beach and Santa Monica,

Newport Beach is one of the growing list of California cities that

have said that until further notice, there will be no butts on the

beach.

In November 2003, Solana Beach, which is next door to Del Mar, was

the first city in California to outlaw sand smoking. Ironically, Del

Mar was where the very first attempt to ban smoking on a beach was

made, in a local ballot initiative that was soundly defeated. That

was way back in 1987.

But the winds of politics, and smoke, have changed a lot since

then. There have been a number of attempts in Sacramento at a

statewide ban on beach smoking, the latest in June of this year, but

none have passed. The margin of defeat is getting smaller and

smaller, though, and I suspect we’ll see one enacted within a year or

so.

In Newport Beach, puffers can still puff in parking lots, but once

the new law takes effect, if you’ve got the wind in your hair, the

sand beneath your toes and a smoke in your hand, you are toast.

Are Newport Beach police going to be chasing down smokers and

running them to ground with nets and Taser guns? Umm, no. The city is

hoping that people will honor the smoking ban once the word gets out

and the signs go up, and that police and lifeguards will intercede

only in cases where someone is being extreme, obnoxious, or extremely

obnoxious.

According to Newport Beach Mayor Tod Ridgeway, “It’s about respect

and courtesy, and I think that with self-policing, it’ll be the same

way on the beaches.”

For most cities, a bigger issue than the smoking itself is what

happens to the cigarette and cigar butts that linger long after the

smoking is done.

As anyone who has ever helped with a beach cleanup knows,

cigarette and cigar butts make up a large part of the day’s haul.

I can believe it.

Yes, I am a reformed smoker -- 12 years clean. Most people

wouldn’t dream of tossing a Styrofoam cup or a food wrapper onto the

sand. But if you’re a sand smoker, sitting there, puffing away, it’s

hard to ignore the fact that you’re sitting on a gigantic, five-mile

long, sand-filled ashtray.

The temptation is overwhelming. You drop your hand to the sand and

make the evidence disappear with a gentle push. Who would see and who

would know?

The next person who comes along and steps on that patch of sand,

that’s who, or the next cleanup crew that has the pleasure of picking

up a few thousand other butts in addition to yours.

Newport Beach isn’t the first city to ban smoking on the beach and

they certainly won’t be the last. But what’s more interesting to me

is that it’s one more installment in the long-running battle we have

with ourselves about smoking and what to do about it.

The argument ebbs and flows, rises and falls, but it’s always

there, and people on both sides of the issue are passionate about it.

There are health issues, rights issues and liability issues, and

issues about what the issue really is.

In recent years, the anti-smoking team has been on a roll. First

on airplanes, then in restaurants, then public buildings, and now on

beaches, the smoking lamp is out. A handful of “Smoking Area” signs

have replaced the multitude of “Thank You for Not Smoking” signs,

which are no longer necessary. Although this one is still my

favorite, by far: “If we see you smoking, we will assume you are on

fire and take appropriate action.”

Today, outside most office buildings, there is the small but

constant gaggle of smokers near the door, huddled together, chatting

quietly while the passing parade goes by in one direction or the

other, each group pretending the other isn’t there -- a strange

ritual of our life and time.

People who are not old enough to wrinkle may not realize how

pervasive smoking was not all that long ago.

Turn the clock back to the 1970s or earlier and a non-smoker was

hard to find. You could light up almost anywhere at any time, and

most people did. Judges smoked on the bench and lawyers stubbed out

their cigarette before approaching the witness.

When Edward R. Murrow popped into someone’s living room on “Person

to Person,” he smoked like a chimney on a winter night in Maine and

most of his guests did the same, from Marilyn Monroe to Dwight

Eisenhower to John Steinbeck.

Not long ago, I was watching a remarkable episode of “What’s My

Line?” from the early 1950s. It was a celebrity episode, where the

panelists wear blindfolds while the host, John Daly, fields the

questions for the celebrity guests, who happened to be Lucille Ball

and Desi Arnaz.

What made it so remarkable, 50 years later, was something that

wouldn’t even have been noticed at the time.

Lucy, Desi and John Daly were all puffing away, as were two of the

five panelists, who had to maneuver their cigarettes around their

blindfolds, then feel around for an ashtray. Forget the smoke-filled

room. It was a smoke-filled world.

For today’s smokers, the world is shrinking fast, and the beaches

in Newport just disappeared.

Will the smoking puzzle ever get sorted out? Not in my lifetime,

and certainly not by me.

I’m still working on why you can’t tickle yourself and how dry

cleaning works. It’s a mystery I tell you.

I gotta go.

* PETER BUFFA is a former Costa Mesa mayor. His column runs

Sundays. He may be reached by e-mail at ptrb4@aol.com.