Orange County cities are increasingly limiting where people can smoke or buy vapes and cigarettes, adding new restrictions that cut down on their use in public spaces or outside the home.
Cypress joined several other cities on Monday night with a new ban on smoking at places like parking lots, farmers markets, and workplaces, along with new rules banning smoking near bus stops, schools and daycares.
While state law already bans smoking in places like schools, playgrounds, government buildings and gyms, state law doesn’t limit smoking in outdoor work spaces, outdoor dining spots or public parks without a playground.
Cypress only has one code enforcement officer for its 50,000 residents, and they’d be responsible for handling smoking violations.
During Monday’s Cypress City Council meeting, Councilman Kyle Chang said he hadn’t seen much smoking around town in the first place.
“I don’t think it would really change,” Chang said.
Alicia Velasco, the city’s planning director, noted that the code enforcement officer likely would not be dispatched unless there were repeated instances of someone breaking the rule.
“Our enforcement is generally complaint driven,” Velasco said.
The next night, Newport Beach City Council members approved a 45-day moratorium on any new smoke shops opening in town while they look at drafting new restrictions on where they can operate.
The restrictions come after the city has seen a 720% increase in arrests for illegal use of nitrous oxide according to city staff, who also reported that police officers have raided two smoke shops in the past two years in Corona Del Mar, including one that held over 450 pounds of illegal cannabis and psilocybin mushrooms.
“I don’t think problems are limited to that district,” said Councilwoman Lauren Kleiman. “We’re seeing a number of other cities around us taking steps to put protections in place for their communities.”
Councilwoman Robyn Grant also brought up how she wants to see a discussion on potentially limiting where people can smoke.
“I know that we do restrict smoking in our city on public parks and beaches,” Grant said. “It might be appropriate at this time, since we’re looking at where we’re selling it that we also look at where we’re using it.”
They aren’t the first in the county to crack down on where people can smoke.
Garden Grove leaders ordered their staff to draw up new rules to ban smoking and vaping in public parks at a meeting earlier this month, and are awaiting a proposed draft ordinance.
[Read: No More Butts: Garden Grove Looks to Ban Smoking at Parks]
At Orange’s Tuesday council meeting, Councilwoman Arianna Barrios has asked city staff to bring up an item to regulate tobacco retailers.
Irvine was one of the first cities to ban smoking in 2019, outlawing cigarettes and vapes in parks, streets, parking lots, apartment complexes and on all city owned property.
Buena Park, Dana Point and Laguna Beach all share similar smoking bans.
Noah Biesiada is a Voice of OC reporter. Contact him at nbiesiada@voiceofoc.org.