Santa Cruz resident Bob Yount, with sterile mask removed, adresses the council. Photo by Curtis Cartier
Last night, the city of Santa Cruz enacted a wide-ranging public smoking ban, eliciting cheers from some and jeers from others. The ban covers all of Pacific Avenue and West Cliff Drive, as well as Beach Street between the Santa Cruz Municipal Wharf, all municipal parks, the Wharf, outside dining areas (including bars and coffee shops), and within 25 feet of any door or window used by the public. The ban was passed unanimously by City Council.
In addition to the ban, City Council proposed a local tax on cigarettes, with revenues used to clean up butts littering public spaces.
Around 30 people attended the meeting - far fewer than expected. Most cheered in response, including restaurateur Shanna Casey who said that secondhand smoke blows in to her work at the Asana Tea House on Lincoln constantly, and 8-year-old Kyle Ellis who said, simply: “I think kids should be able to breathe fresh air, without smoke.”
Some even added that the ban didn’t go far enough and asked that all outdoor smoking be banned in Santa Cruz. In contrast, Scott Graham, an opponent of the ban, said that the measure was extreme: “This room used to be filled with people smoking cigarettes at City Council meetings. No one died at those meetings,” he said, adding, “If I were to back my car into this room and let it run for 10 minutes, everyone would be dead.”
The ban is scheduled to go into effect on October 20. Read more at Santa Cruz Sentinel.
Comments (33)
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Tarah Locke Wed, Sep 09, 2009 - 2:22 pm
THIS IS WONDERFUL!!! I have 2 kids, 3 and 6 mo. and I can’t stand the smoke from stupid peoples ciggerates infiltrating their innocent lungs. Now time to ban smoking in cars, cause hello people, that smoke then enters my car and once again into my babies!
Y Tripp Wed, Sep 09, 2009 - 3:28 pm
Tarah, don’t be a kook. Banning smoking in cars cause it goes into yours? WTF? Roll up a window.
As far as banning smoking downtown, lots of people lose. You’ll be making everyone feel like a drug addict hiding around corners. It’s legal to buy and use, and there is no federal law stating that you can’t use it in public. People have the option to walk away from smoke OUTSIDE. If you have to linger somewhere near a smoker, that’s life.
I’m sure many of you people smoke pot, as i’ve heard many that do complain about cigarettes too. It’s all a bunch of B.S.
Fight this piece of stinky legislation and get your rights back people.
Ban non-smokers from smoke happy establishments. Let’s keep our choices our own.
Emily Thu, Sep 10, 2009 - 11:00 am
I could not agree more! this is crazy, are people unaware of the concept that we ALL have rights? and not just the right to do what is popular?
Hank Fri, Sep 11, 2009 - 9:09 am
How about the RIGHTS for our children to breath clean air? Oh, or maybe I’m just wasting my time talking to a wall of selfish people…
Really Mon, Sep 28, 2009 - 12:01 am
Are the RIGHTS of your children “better” than the rights of other people? How about their children?
Mark Tue, Feb 02, 2010 - 10:21 pm
ALL people, from conception until natural death, have the RIGHT TO LIFE. Toxins scientifically demonstrable damaging to life impede the RIGHT TO LIFE of the person not foolishly engaging in slow suicide.
So, yes, there is a resolution to your proposed false premise construction other than dismissing it for its myriad logical fallacies.
hockiepockie Sat, Dec 05, 2009 - 4:10 am
You choose to smoke you should be the one to roll up your damn window! Like on one of those stifling hot summer days. You love your smoke roll up your window and enjoy every last drop of it.
It is your responsibility to accommodate, not the non-smokers. Too long non-smokers have been forced to accommodate smokers. It has been absurd for way too many years.
You wouldn’t want me to force my life choices on you. Freedom comes with responsibility.
Time to take responsibility for the choices you make in your life. You don’t have the right to make a choice for anyone but yourself. Especially if it affects their health.
Mark Tue, Feb 02, 2010 - 10:17 pm
“roll up a window”
How ignorant are you? People do not suffocate in cars with windows rolled up. Gee, why might that be? Perhaps air intake somewhere else?
Could the airflow around the vehicle possibly funnel toxins into the air intake of the pursuing vehicle?
If reality is this challenging for you one it is not challenging to grasp why you promote chemical reality “escapism”
illinoisboy Wed, Sep 09, 2009 - 3:33 pm
This should have been done years ago. The vast majority of people have had it with secondhand smoke. Even most smokers agree.
lemon lime Wed, Sep 09, 2009 - 9:41 pm
Tripper:
Ok kid, the whole point of that argument was that second-hand smoke is poisonous which no little babies need in their bodies. The minute you can smell smoke, the cancerous chemicals have already leached in.
Guess your just a heartless white trash freak that should go live in Boulder with the rest of the uneducated socially-challenged folks.
hockiepockie Mon, Sep 14, 2009 - 6:02 pm
It is funny to here people talk about rights and smoking in the same sentence.
THERE IS NO RIGHT TO SMOKE!
You have as much right to smoke as you do to shoot up heroin.
You have as much right to smoke as you do to kill someone.
It is unfortunate that the rude and loud-mouthed smokers have given all smokers even the courteous ones a bad name.
The crazy, holier than thou smoker have made everyone hate smokers and perceive them all as ugly monster. Here’s a good example of the face of the monster…
http://news.santacruz.com/2009/08/12/raft_of_rules_for_groups_santa_cruz_apartments
Mark Tue, Feb 02, 2010 - 10:23 pm
There is NO RIGHT TO SUICIDE either.
It is immoral AND ILLEGAL. Its attempt is illegal.
Guy Marzetti Tue, Sep 15, 2009 - 3:55 pm
...says all the SUV driving, extra polluting, wasteful American consumers.
You’re babies are crowding my smoking section (the whole earth) and are polluting the environment. Just like you. Hypocrites.
cat's meow Thu, Sep 17, 2009 - 10:41 pm
THERE IS *NO* LEGAL RIGHT TO SMOKE!!!
see: http://www.mombu.com/cigars/cigars/t—there-is-no-legal-right-to-smoke-tobacco-page2-2922473.html
“Likewise, courts are now beginning to hold that smoking in a private apartment is not protected if the smoke adversely affects others (e.g., if it drifts or re-circulates into another apartment) [8] and numerous apartment buildings, college dormitories, nursing homes, and other residences have banned smoking even over the objections of smokers who may not have much choice to live elsewhere. Even in this related context, it is becoming clear that there is no right to smoke, even in one’s own home.”
[8] See, e.g.:
Donath v. Dadah, No. 91-CV179 (Worcester Cty., MA, Housing Court Dept. 1991); Fox Point Apt. v. Kippes, No. 92-6924, (Lackamas County (OR) Dist. Ct. 1992); Snow v. Gilbert, Middlesex Cty., Docket No. MICV94 07373 (MA Sup. Ct. 1994); Pentony v. Conrad et al., (NJ Sup. Ct. 1994); Dworkin v. Paley, 638 N.E.2d 636 (93 Ohio App. 3d 1994); Layon v. Jolley, Case No. NS004483 (Cal. Sup. Ct., Los Angeles Cty. 1996; 50-58 Gainsborough St. Realty Trust v. Haile, No. 98-02279 (Boston Housing Ct. 1998); see, generally, Ezra, Get Your Ashes out of my Living Room!: Controlling Tobacco Smoke in Multi-Unit Residential Housing, 54 Rutgers L. Rev. 135 (2001).
hockiepockie Tue, Sep 22, 2009 - 10:37 pm
I can’t wait for Oct 20 to call the police on my whack job chain-smoking neighbors. Now the common areas of my apt complex can be enjoyed by all instead of a handful of rude smokers.
I’ll probably be the caller who gets them to issue their first warning!
I can’t wait
Now if the city council cared enough to protect me from my smoking neighbor who is “killing me slowly” with her smoke inside my apt.
After Lynn Robinson’s comment of calling the city of Belmont “draconian” for doing just this, I’m not holding my breath. Maybe I can die in wait for another 16 years to past like Yount did for his outdoor ban.
Maybe I could just move outdoors into the protected common areas, so I can be free of deadly second-hand-smoke.
Mark Tue, Feb 02, 2010 - 10:26 pm
Wonder how long it will take them to retaliate against the people who displace them.
Liberalism only allows agreement and not dissent.
ed Fri, Sep 25, 2009 - 2:40 am
Santa Cruz is full of paradoxes and odd occurrences. Some things are able to slide, when others are cracked down on. I get a bike ticket from the cops, yet people openly smoke up downtown.
A ‘down and out’ guy playing the bongos busks for money, then at the end of the day drives off in his sports SUV…
Danger Wed, Sep 30, 2009 - 7:28 pm
i think this is horrible!! all of you who complain about your babies being “harmed” with second hand smoke…haha…what a joke. question.. do you let them breathe the air? i know stupid question, cuz the answer is yes… now this may come as a shock to you, but you are letting them breathe in carbon monoxide from the smog from your car. *GASP* OH NOEZ!! imagine that. suddenly cigarette smoke doesn’t sound so bad. People should have the right to smoke outside. its one thing if you are in a building that has no ventilation where there are 20 people around you smoking. that would be cause for concern. but people smoking outside where there is proper airflow…i don’t see where the issue is..
hate to break it to you people, but your kids are over-rated. I’m a non-smoker myself.
Cheers
R. Danger Wed, Sep 30, 2009 - 7:37 pm
To all you up tight nonsmokers: “I have some news for you, cuz i know you don’t know this…this will help you evolve quickly….Nonsmokers die everyday! haha. Sleep tight. The truth shall set you free. i know that you non smokers entertain some type of eternal life fantasy because you don’t smoke cigarettes. let me be the first to pop that bubble, cuz you’re gonna die.” - Bill Hicks
hockiepockie Fri, Oct 02, 2009 - 12:43 pm
True non-smokers die everyday…but at least not from horrible, agonizing cancer caused by impolite smokers.
Nobody has the right to force you to breathe poison. That is a decision you can only make for yourself.
I don’t care whether you smoke or not that is your choice, I just don’t want to breathe your toxic second-hand smoke that is my choice.
If you want to kill yourself that is your choice, but keep your smoke to yourself.
Maybe someone should invent smoking helmets, so you get to breathe 100% of your smoke. Then you could smoke anywhere without interfering on other people’s rights.
Ron Fri, Oct 23, 2009 - 5:55 am
So can you smoke pot in Santa Cruz if you have your prescription with you? Must be great to own a business in your city.
jouer poker en ligne Sat, Nov 14, 2009 - 5:34 am
I completely agree with the above comment, the internet is with a doubt growing into the most important medium of communication across the globe and its due to sites like this that ideas are spreading so quickly….
http://www.poker-virtuel.fr/
jim rothstein Wed, Dec 02, 2009 - 7:30 pm
Any comments about this? (early Dec)
I still see numerous smokers on Pacific Avenue.
hockiepockie Thu, Dec 03, 2009 - 9:31 pm
Me too three of them out in the open right next to the entrance of Zachery. Not good for business! Plus people allergic to SHS.
Rob N Sun, Dec 06, 2009 - 9:16 pm
OK we won’t swoke outside if you won’t drive your cars/trucks…outside. DEAL???
hockiepockie Mon, Dec 07, 2009 - 3:57 am
Dear Rob
There is one difference car exhaust levels are regulated, but cigarettes (toxins) have yet to be regulated.
Your apples and oranges argument is flawed. You are comparing two non-comparable things. Everyone can see where you got your flawed rebuttal if they go to smokers’ rights websites sponsored by tobacco companies. This is the best they can come up with.
Too bad the city councils members were stupid enough to fall for it. They talked about the exhaust argument as if it was a valid rebuttal. They fell for the tobacco companies’ bait and switch pitch.
Genius from another Beach Fri, Dec 18, 2009 - 12:50 am
State engineered behavior modification with bans or taxes, and “hate” crimes.
How many stones to through before the advent of thought police?
(No, sir, you do not have the right to silence others’ free expression that offends you)
just say no to drugs Sat, Dec 19, 2009 - 11:01 pm
Whatever happened to behavior modification through electro-shock treatment for cigarette addiction?
Maybe they need to revive it.
Myrna Tue, Feb 02, 2010 - 2:24 pm
Every new law takes away a few more of our individual rights. Come on….with a whole world of fresh air blowing in off the ocean, you mean to tell me that someone is going to be harmed by a puff of smoke that drifts within 100 feet of them. Another of the Santa Cruz whacko ideas.
How long before there are laws banning perfume wearers, overweight people, people with beards, or just people of any kind who don’t fit the Progressive’s profile. If you want to hand over the right to the government to make laws to control every conceivable aspect of our lives then you deserve to live in George Orwell’s “1984”.
Mark Tue, Feb 02, 2010 - 10:14 pm
I’ll settle for a ban on liberalism, a ban on moral relativism, and a ban on subjective reality—all those who endorse the prior ought be institutionalized as they are a danger to themselves and others.
Rachael Cook Sat, Feb 27, 2010 - 11:11 pm
When are they going to START enforcing it.
Every time I go to Zachery’s I see the same guy outside the apt door, sitting on the folding chair, and smoking. Sometimes he has other smoking friends. He is always right there in the open.
Also I second-hand smoked to death by 3 smothering cigarette holders in a public common area parking lot off Pacific.
There are still lots of butts around which means lots of smokers.
Santa Cruz NEEDS to RETURN that award they got for the ban. They DON’T deserved it.
Actions speak louder than words!
Bill O'Really Tue, Mar 02, 2010 - 10:45 am
@ Rachael Cook
There is no “they”; there is only you.
When are YOU going to invoke the law on YOUR OWN behalf?
Actions are more productive than sitting at your workstation whining!
Rachel Cook Sun, Mar 14, 2010 - 4:00 am
What are you suggesting Bill?
Should I take the law into my own hands? Maybe shoot down smokers on Pacific! Dead smokers don’t smoke, right?
I think I have the beginning of a new video game! Shoot the rude smokers! Now that would be a fun game to play! And the proceeds could go to getting cigarettes banned everywhere especially in multi-house dwellings with connecting walls.
Maybe a some bribes to the cowardly city council to step up to the plate and take some REAL ACTION on Second-Hand Smoke!
Thanks Bill!