Hermosa Beach pledges tighter no-smoking enforcement, eyes licenses for tobacco sellers to protect minors

Research shows the number of adults smoking in Hermosa Beach has dropped significantly two years after the city eliminated smoking from all parks, outdoor dining areas and city-owned parking lots. Photo credit: shutterstock.com
No Smoking

Hermosa Beach will increase enforcement of its public smoking bans.

The Hermosa Beach City Council has agreed to more actively enforce its three-year-old ban on smoking in public areas such as the Strand, the city pier and the popular Pier Plaza. The council also tentatively agreed to add e-cigarettes to the smoking ban.

In a second look at smoking in Hermosa, the council also began to study the possibility of licensing tobacco sellers, to make it harder for them to sell to minors.

In a unanimous vote on Tuesday, the council directed city officials to report on options for beefing up enforcement of the smoking ban, which also covers outdoor dining areas, the beach, city parking lots including the downtown parking garage, and city parks including the greenbelt that runs north-and-south through the town.

At the meeting, a handful of Hermosans addressed the council to encourage no-smoking measures.

The council rejected, at least for now, a suggestion by Los Angeles County public health officials to extend the smoking ban to apartments. Such bans are in place in 10 cities in the county, including Pasadena, Santa Monica, Glendale, Burbank and Calabasas.

“We have a law on the books that there is no smoking on the Strand and the Plaza, and we need to spend some time making that work, rather than expand that elsewhere,” Councilman Michael DiVirgilio said.

He said the ban has reduced smoking in the targeted areas, but has not reduced it enough.

“We spent so much time on the legislation, we need to spend more time on implementation,” he said.

As part of the study on a potential licensing program for tobacco sellers, city officials will meet with the retailers to get their input.

Tobacco selling licenses are required in 100 California communities including Long Beach, Lawndale and Gardena.

The licenses provide leverage to punish retailers who sell to minors with fines, penalties, and suspended or revoked licenses, according to county public health officials. Fees for the licenses would cover the costs of enforcing the program.

A licensing program also could restrict tobacco sales near schools and parks.

Despite Hermosa’s 2011 smoking ban, an annual tobacco report card by the American Lung Association gave the city an overall grade of D, based on F grades in “smoke-free housing” and “reducing sales of tobacco products to minors.”

On the housing front, public health officials say tobacco smoke seeps from apartment to apartment through windows, electrical outlets, pipes and mountings for fixtures. They are concerned about health effects from second-hand smoke, and from third-hand smoke which lurks in furniture, carpeting and other items.

Comments:

comments so far. Comments posted to EasyReaderNews.com may be reprinted in the Easy Reader print edition, which is published each Thursday.