Quick Take
The Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors unanimously supported a ban on filtered cigarettes in an initial vote Tuesday, but said it would not be enforced until at least two of the county’s four cities follow suit.
The Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors gave preliminary approval Tuesday to a proposed ban on filtered cigarette sales; however, enforcement of the ban will depend on whether at least two of the county’s four cities pass similar laws.
The vote was unanimous. Supervisors Justin Cummings and Manu Koenig, who sponsored the proposal, said the prohibition was aimed more at reducing pollution than decreasing smoking habits among county residents for health reasons. A 2023 report from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration found that cigarette butts alone accounted for 23% of the litter picked up along the Monterey Bay’s beaches.
At its meeting on Tuesday, the five-member board listened to environmentalists and public health experts talking about plastic pollution’s damaging impacts, while local business owners and convenience store employees voiced concern over how a ban on filtered cigarette sales could put them out of a job. Led by Cummings and Koenig, the board decided the negative effects of cigarette butts significantly outweighed any damage a ban would inflict on sales tax revenue and business income.
However, supervisors said they don’t want to do this alone. The county’s ban would affect only the unincorporated areas. Although the county’s four incorporated cities – Santa Cruz, Watsonville, Capitola and Scotts Valley – have each passed resolutions recognizing tobacco waste as a public health threat, none has floated the idea of banning filtered cigarettes.
“For the implementation of carrying out this ordinance, if we pass it, I think it’s critical that we have some other jurisdictions, at least two of the four, be part of this,” District 5 Supervisor Bruce McPherson said.
Originally, the ban was proposed to have a long runway. If the supervisors pass the ordinance on Oct. 29, it would go into effect 31 days later, after which county officials would work on education and issue warnings to businesses that continued to sell the products. But the county wouldn’t begin enforcing the ban — revoking or suspending local tobacco sale licenses as punishment for violations — until Jan. 1, 2027. However, the shape of that changed Tuesday.
The supervisors agreed that if they pass the ban on Oct. 29, it would not be enforceable until the later of either Jan. 1, 2027, or until at least two of the four cities pass similar laws.
District 2 Supervisor Zach Friend said making the county’s ban contingent on its neighboring cities protects the county from “becoming an island.”
“At the end of the day, this is about setting a statewide precedent,” Friend said. “We can’t really be effective without some of these other communities joining in.”
The supervisors are scheduled to take a second and final vote on the ban on Oct. 29.
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