Encinitas approves beach smoking ban Mobile-home park study debated By Adam Kaye North County Times February 21, 2008 ENCINITAS -- Following the lead of other coastal cities, Encinitas will now ban smoking at its beaches, the City Council unanimously decided Wednesday. While Solana Beach and Del Mar approved such bans four years ago, a smoking ordinance did not receive enough votes to pass in Encinitas at the time. That changed Wednesday, to the pleasure of prevention advocates, when the council passed the smoking ban, 5-0. "I feel absolutely great," said Candice Porter, an Encinitas resident and adviser of a teen group that lobbied for a smoking ban in 2004. "It's a wonderful ordinance and it's really going to help protect the health and well-being of the citizens of Encinitas and all of our visitors." Also on Wednesday, the council moved toward pursuing a 45-day moratorium on the sale, subdivision or rent increases at the city's 11 mobile-home parks. The smoking ordinance in Encinitas would apply to 6.5 miles of beaches as well as 17 city parks, trails and outdoor eating areas. The draft ordinance states that "the smoking of tobacco, or any other weed or plant, is a danger to health." Cigarette litter, it states, "degrade(s) the aesthetic quality of ... beaches, parks, trails and in outdoor (and) patio dining areas." The ordinance identifies cigarette butts as the most common form of trash on city beaches. In 2004, youthful backers of a smoking ban made the same point. Teens belonging to the Youth Tobacco Prevention Corps, a division of the San Dieguito Alliance for Drug-Free Youth, displayed what they called the "butt tub," a plastic bin containing 6,437 cigarette butts collected by 30 people in one hour at Moonlight Beach. Across the region, a dozen of 18 jurisdictions, including the county, ban smoking at all enclosed spaces open to the general public as well as workplaces. The jurisdictions allow for smoking in designated areas. State laws prohibit smoking at playgrounds, inside public buildings and within 20 feet of doors and operable windows of public buildings. California outlawed smoking in bars and restaurants in 1998. On the topic of mobile-home parks, the council spent nearly three hours debating the findings of a recent survey of the city's 11 mobile-home parks at Wednesday's hearing. The survey painted an overly negative picture of conditions at the park because people with negative experiences are more likely to respond, critics said. Andy Anderson, owner of the Riviera Mobile Home Park, noted that 60 percent of residents who were issued the survey chose not to respond. "Some residents asked me, 'What's the city doing? What are they going to take away from us? Why are they poking their nose into our business?' " Anderson said. "Respondents saw an opportunity to complain and are not representative of the 60 percent who did not respond." Determined to keep mobile-home parks as a source of low-cost housing, the council in October commissioned the study at a cost of $45,000. Of 786 surveys issued, 303 were returned, planner Mike Strong told the council. The survey concluded: - more than half of mobile-home residents are older than 65; - more than three-quarters of mobile-home residents qualify as living in a "low-income" household; - nearly four in 10 respondents said their mobile homes need repairs. -- Contact staff writer Adam Kaye at (760) 901-4074 or akaye@nctimes.com Copyright 1999-2008, California Coastal Coalition Phone: (760) 944-3564