All too often I have brought my children to San Diego beachs for a relaxing day of sun and fun and been interrupted by the irritating stench of cigarette smoke.  Well, the city of San Diego has joined a growing number of California Cities who believe that the only butts that belong on the beach are those attached to your legs.

Beginning on Aug 17th Beach and Park users in the city of San Diego can breathe a sigh of relief.  San Diego has joined a rapidly growing list of Southern California Cities that are banning Beach and Park Smoking.

Though most state beaches still allow smoking, in less than three years, 20 cities in four Southern California counties have quietly outlawed beach smoking in rapid succession.

Anti-smoking groups trace the origins of smoking restrictions to the mid-1990s, when the city of Honolulu banned smoking at Hanauma Bay, and the town of Sharon, Mass., approved a ban at city beaches, parks and ball fields.

The movement picked up speed in 2003 when Solana Beach, north of San Diego, passed the state’s first ban. The City Council acted after 6 high school students collected an estimated 6,000 cigarette butts from Moonlight beach, stuffed them in a large glass jar and displayed them at a council meeting.

Bans soon followed in other beach cities in Southern California and at beaches operated by Los Angeles County.

“It was the right time, and there were like-minded activists working in a number of communities. It had reached that tipping point,” said Robert Berger, president of Healthier Solutions, a Santa Monica-based health advocacy group, and former president of the Los Angeles County Smoke-Free Beach Task Force.

Only a few area beach cities have chosen not to enact bans, including Redondo Beach, Ventura and Encinitas. The most notable holdout is the state Department of Parks and Recreation, which still allows smoking at the state beaches it oversees.

A California State Assembly bill to declare state beaches smoke-free was opposed by tobacco industry lobbyists and died in the State Senate two years ago, but anti-smoking forces predict a state ban is inevitable.

“We pay taxes for these beaches,” said one smoker. “These areas were set aside for the public to enjoy, and now they’re saying, no, you can’t go enjoy them because you’re a smoker.”

Supporters of smoke-free beaches caution that cities without bans run the risk of being stigmatized as the ashtrays of Southern California.

No wonder the Orange County Health Care Agency is preparing a report about beach smoking bans for county supervisors, and Morro Bay approved a ban on June 12 with fines up to $1,000 for scofflaw smokers.

In Los Angeles County, those wishing to savor a cigarette with a beach sunset will soon have just three choices: Redondo, a small beach in Palos Verdes Estates that is reached by a steep trail, and a smoker-friendly beach at Leo Carrillo State Park in Malibu.

All other beaches in the county will be smoke-free by July, when bans recently passed in Torrance and Hermosa Beach will be in effect.

Several Los Angeles area cities have banned smoking not only on beaches, but on piers also.

In Orange County, all state beaches except Corona del Mar allow smokers, but only a handful of municipal beaches do. The city of San Diego approved a ban today!

As so often happens, cities elsewhere are following California’s lead.

Cocoa Beach may become Florida’s first city to ban beach smoking, and the Costa Brava town L’Escala in Spain restricted beach tobacco use two months ago in what a British newspaper described as a “California-style ban.”

Such restrictions represent a new horizon for anti-smoking groups because they do not involve enclosed places such as offices or restaurants, but large, well-ventilated areas outdoors.

The beach-smoking bans have succeeded largely because separate interest groups pulled together to support them.

Health-conscious residents have lobbied in favor of clean air and against noxious cigarette smoke.

Environmentalists and surfers have called for clean beaches and for offshore waters untainted by cigarette butts.

“Its secondhand smoke, it’s littering, it’s protecting the children, it’s the marine environment,” said Debra Kelley, a vice president at the American Lung Assn. of San Diego and Imperial Counties.
The remaining advocates of smokers’ rights promise to keep fighting.

My children and I will not be wishing you luck.

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