What is the next step for the effort to ban filtered cigarettes from the County of Santa Cruz? – The Mercury News

Santa Cruz – When the County Supervisors Council of Santa Cruz agreed to prohibit the sale of cigarettes filtered at the end of last year, it was the most important political victory for a movement which had roots dating from more than a decade.

Orange smoking sticks fill chemicals and microplastics, stand their heads and shoulders above any other waste of waste picked up along the local banks during the beach cleanings.

But even if the defenders pushed hard for historic local legislation, there was a recognition that the order contained holes – four to be exact.

“Even at the county level, for it to be effective, we must not only have the county not constituted in society, but all the jurisdictions of the city prohibiting filtered tobacco products,” said Katie Thompson, executive director of Save Our Shores, who helped direct “but the butt” efforts locally. “Because we cannot have these holes in the county where people can continue to buy filtered cigarettes.”

Partner cities

While other California municipalities such as Manhattan Beach and Beverly Hills have completely prohibited the sale of tobacco, the County of Santa Cruz is the first to adopt a ban on filtered products in the hope that it will become something bigger.

Because the authority of the Council of Supervisors of the County of Santa Cruz was limited to the territory of the county not constituted in society – still not an easy task, since this is where half of the county population resides – smokers can always stop in one of the four cities of county incorporated for a pack before heading to the coast. In addition, cities also have a special role to play with regard to mechanics to transfer the law to action.

Presented as a functionality that will help local retailers to adapt, the application of the county order has been delayed until January 1, 2027, or until two other local jurisdictions adopt similar prohibitions, according to the later. So, as the movement to rid the county of filtered tobacco products begins to resume where it stopped last October, it set a new objective: inuniating the partner cities.

During an event in March organized by Save Our Shores to infuse energy in the Butt Ban movement, the county supervisor of the 3rd district Justin Cummings, who sponsored the county policy alongside the Manu Koenig supervisor, said that the county was the first through the wall. He noted that taking into account his broad authority and his access to legal resources, the court was in a solid position to manage all the tobacco companies if they disputes the ordinance before the court.

Tara Leonard, a Healthy County Health Educator who helped develop the prescription, confirmed that Friday, the county had not been subject to proceedings or tort complaints relating to the ban on tobacco filter.

Thompson said that the effort of outlaw would first pay his attention to the cities of Capitola and Santa Cruz, thinking that they are most likely to adopt politics despite the fact that it is encouragement. Leonard said that she would present an article of information on the filtered impacts on cigarettes at the meeting of the Capitola municipal council on April 10.

Thompson hopes that the article non-action this month will possibly lead to the drafting of a new order in Capitola which could then take momentum in Santa Cruz where, according to Thompson, another information element is temporarily provided for a certain time in June.

Leonard added that the city of Santa Cruz had already planned a public open day on tobacco and tobacco products from 5 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. on April 29 at London Nelson Community Center. The center is at 301 Center St. in Santa Cruz.

Cummings underlined during the March event that there must be generalized membership so that any real impact is felt, given the omnipresence of the Cigarette litter.

“Although we want to focus on trying to get Capitola and Santa Cruz, perhaps being the first two,” said Cummings, “we really want Capitola, Santa Cruz, Watsonville, Scotts Valley then we want to start going to Monterey and continuing to move north and south.”

“Viable” strategy on a state scale

While defenders argue that a demonstration of the momentum will be the key to regional adoption, their ambitions extend far beyond. Thompson said the project to end sales of filtered tobacco products aimed to remove a page from the plastic bag abolition campaign that was played in the county of Santa Cruz 14 years ago.

The County Supervisors Council approved one of the strictest plastic and paper paper laws in 2011 in 2011, and supporters say it served as a test for a law on the scale of the state which was not implemented until a few years later. Mark Stone, who defended the prohibition of plastic bags as a supervisor in the 5th district of the county and continued to serve for a decade in the assembly of the State, told the sentry that the application of the plastic bag model on the filtered cigarettes could prove to be a clever strategic decision.

“Take an effort like this, which has proven to be controversial in the state and bring it back to the local jurisdictions which understand what is the value and are not as linked to the political constraints as the legislature (of the State) is, I think it is a viable strategy,” said Stone. “If other cities and counties will do the same thing, it then signals to the State to be able to intervene before these other ordinances take effect.”

Stone expressed a certain disappointment as to the warnings attached to the county order which apparently slowed down its implementation and for understandable reasons. As a member of the California Assembly, he made four attempts to pass a ban on filtered cigarettes, but all the efforts died in various committees and stages of the legislative process. Stone said it was due in part to large tobacco companies arrowing their political muscle.

Even if, according to Stone’s estimate, less than 12% of Californians smoked when he directed these invoices, “the tobacco industry still spent millions of dollars targeted in the legislative assembly, which meant that it was going to be very, very difficult to obtain anything.”

This strategy will be much more difficult to achieve at the local level, as has been demonstrated during the ban on plastic bags when the county has received little or no opposition from the main players in the plastic industry, according to Stone.

“The big tobacco does not have the same level of control in this myriad of local jurisdictions which they singularly do in the state,” he said. “They would have trouble, I think, to block local jurisdictions to be able to take these measures. And if enough do it, then it will force the action of the state or force the state to relieve it.”

The “Ciggy Plate”

But the efforts to create momentum are not reserved only for the political arena; There is also a cultural component. Except for our shores, with the help of the Cummings and Koenig offices, organized a projection in March of “The Cigarette Surfboard”, a documentary by Ben Judkins and Taylor Lane on the surf boards which are superimposed with cigarette woods thrown by local beaches.

While Lane, the designer of the surfboard, wanted to shape a board which is really rid of in the most difficult conditions – the film culminates with Lane by taking its “Ciggy board” for a session in the famous and Big Wave Surf Mavericks nearly half of Moon – he explained that he also serves as widely discussions Filtered cigarettes.

“We realized that this project was a ship for the broader problem of fighting this world pollution,” said Lane, who designed the board of directors in Santa Cruz. “And what better place to start than in the community where these boards of directors come from, from which surfing is part of the community and that the environment is a pillar of this community. If we cannot do it in Santa Cruz, where these two things are so in conjunction with our lifestyle, where will it happen? ”

In addition to the leachate of toxic chemicals such as arsenic and lead, the cigarette cigarette butts are ultimately decomposed into microplasticism, which infiltrate the local environment and have been detected in almost all vital human organs, including the brain, lungs, livers and kidneys. In addition, health care experts have testified that the filters themselves do not only provide any advantage for health, but they actually cause more harm due to more frequent puffs and deeper inhalations by smokers.

Lane played a key role in the thrust of the filtered message of the art cigarette to action and, alongside Save Our Shores and other defenders, has put pressure on local governments to implement a ban for years.

“There is momentum, people,” said Lane. “Are we going to do it, or are we going to be afraid?”