No butts on beach smoking ban

Ask anyone who’s ever done a beach cleanup and they’ll confirm: Cigarette butts are all over the place.

That is not an exaggeration, according to several groups that track beach and marine debris. And they have data in abundance that support the wisdom of the latest regulation before the Honolulu City Council: a smoking ban to be implemented at select Oahu beaches. The measure, Bill 72, will have its first reading, and probably draw its first round of testimony, in the Council’s session today.

There is certain to be pushback in the initial remarks, from citizens who are growing weary with efforts to regulate private behavior that affects the larger public. No smoking in buildings, bars, buses, many condominiums, and now no smoking at the beach?

It might not have been necessary, except for the fact that some of this private behavior is bad behavior. In September, for example, the nonprofit group Sustainable Coastlines Hawaii consistently finds cigarette butts the No. 1 item collected in beach sweeps, said Kahi Pacarro, the group’s event director. At a recent cleanup at Kailua Beach Park, for example, nearly 9,000 cigarette butts turned up. Most beaches get cleaned by motorized sweepers, but the screens in them let a lot of such small items slip through.

Beaches are critical assets for a visitor destination, and are just as prized for kamaaina enjoyment. And cigarette litter contains both the toxins of the tobacco — which can wash into the sea and poison marine life — and the slow-to-degrade plastics in the filter. It’s not just paper that will soon decompose.

A starting point for correcting the litter problem had to be found, said the bill’s sponsor, Councilman Stanley Chang. What the measure does is add five parks to the list of areas on Oahu where smoking is already banned.

The additions, among the highest-traffic areas on the island, are Duke Paoa Kahanamoku Beach Park, Kapiolani Park (both makai and mauka areas), Kuhio Beach Park, Sandy Beach Park and "all sandy areas of Ala Moana Regional Park under the maintenance of the Department of Parks and Recreation," according to the bill. The department would essentially allow smoking on Ala Moana’s grassy areas and would have the leeway to establish smoking areas at the other four sites as well.

These areas were selected, Chang said, partly because there are city personnel on site regularly, making enforcement easier there. Fines start at $100, according to the ordinance already banning smoking at other city sites.

In part, this move was inspired by a smoking ban enacted at all county parks by the Hawaii County Council in 2008. Some environmental advocacy groups think Oahu needs a similarly comprehensive approach, asserting that there’s already been enough incrementalism here.

Suzanne Frazer, for example, noted that smoking already has been banned by the city at the Honolulu Zoo, Hanauma Bay Nature Preserve, Koko Crater Botanical Garden and the Waikiki Shell. Frazer is an organizer with Beach Environmental Awareness Campaign Hawaii, which collaborated with the Coalition for a Tobacco Free Hawaii on the Hawaii island initiative, and she said the experience gathered to date on Oahu already supports a broader ban.

However, Chang has the more pragmatic and thus persuasive view that phasing in a new regulation would allow for refinements — which education outreach efforts work best in preventing litter, for instance, or which set-aside areas provide sufficient allowances for smokers — and would be more likely to pass.

"We have to start somewhere," he said, and we agree.

Frazer said that the deterioration of beach cleanliness will only continue without action. She recalled challenging one tourist for tossing a cigarette at Makai Pier near Makapuu, and he retorted that the beach was dirty already. Later that day, she saw the same man at Hanauma Bay, where smoking is already banned, and he said he’d never dream of littering at such a pristine spot.

Good behavior begets more good behavior. If for no other reason than that, some form of Bill 72 should pass to push for better care of Oahu beaches.