Smoking bans lead to litter problem

You can't smoke inside a bar or restaurant. And you can't smoke within 15 feet of the windows, doors or any other openings to such a public place. And to discourage you from smoking within that space, owners of such places can't put an ashtray or butt can within 15 feet of their doors. All that's per state law, which took effect Jan. 1.

But in an urban place like State Street in downtown Geneva, where businesses are cheek-by-jowl with each other and are not set back from the sidewalk, that 15-foot space nearly puts you in the street. And where's a smoker to get rid of the butts?

Apparently, some think the city's lauded flower beds are the place.

Which burns city officials.

"They seem to gravitate toward those flower pots," said Ald. Dorothy Flanagan, a co-leader of the city's Beautification Commission, which maintains about 50 flower beds and planters throughout downtown. "There is one particular place that uses the knuckle (a curved bed) as an ashtray,"

Even more vexing is, that in at least two cases, there are city-owned garbage cans, with clay-filled compartments for cigarette butts, within inches of the large planters. The cans are just outside the 15-foot "no-smoking" space.

A particularly peeved Ald. Robert Piper was the first to raise the issue at a city council meeting a few weeks ago. He suggested that the city should require bars and restaurants to sweep up butts and provide an ash container as part of getting a liquor license. "I don't think the bars are keeping up," he said.

Assistant city administrator Stephanie Dawkins, who researched the question, said last week the city doesn't have the legal authority to require the establishments do that. The most the city can do is cite people who discard a butt in the beds or on the ground for littering, a violation that is punishable by a $25 city fine.

"We cannot require ashtrays," she said.

Clumps of smokers can be seen in the evenings, especially on weekends, outside of several pubs along State, from Route 31 west to Fourth Street.

A recent check found few butts in one planter, which the Arbizzani family volunteers to maintain near the family's businesses at Route 31 and State. There is a city can nearby. At a bar/restaurant a few blocks west, though, there were at least 18 butts in a planter (also called a knuckle, because of its curved shape), despite the presence of a city can. And empty private concrete planters at the long-shuttered Toscana restaurant building were loaded with butts. There is a pub next door.

John Arbizzani, a smoker, is a manager at The Little Owl and the Arbizzanis also own the Flagstone Pub right next door. The kitchen staff is supposed to sweep the sidewalks of cigarette butts every morning, he said.

"It gets to be kind of a disaster," Arbizzani said.

"The onus should be on the cigarette smoker to be a good neighbor," said Jennifer Hefferly, communications director for the Illinois Restaurant Association.

Piper said he thinks the ashtrays on the city cans may be too small for the crowds of smokers at prime times. And he believes people may not know it is illegal to flip a cigarette butt anywhere.

He is working with the city administrator and mayor to meet with downtown business owners to discuss what could be done, whether it is installing a different kind of ash container or putting signs on their buildings or near the flower beds reminding people to discard their cigarettes in approved containers. As a motorcyclist, he has been hit many times with cigarette butts (or "flaming garbage," he calls it) thrown out of car windows. When a smoking ban was first proposed in Geneva, he told the council it would lead to more litter.

"Common sense isn't going to prevail," he said. "They've got to understand they just can't throw butts everywhere."

Local smoking law

Geneva, like Batavia, North Aurora and other suburbs before it, adopted the state smoking ban as its own Tuesday, Sept. 2.

• The move will allow the city to use its own prosecutor to go after violators ticketed by Geneva police in the same way it prosecutes traffic tickets and violations of city ordinances, instead of going through the criminal court system.

• The city will still split the fine money with the state health department.

• A person convicted of illegal smoking can be fined $100 to $250.

• A proprietor convicted of allowing illegal smoking can be fined $250 to $2,500.

• Smokers should also note: Discarding your smoking materials in anything but a proper container is considered littering in Geneva. Police can fine you $25 for doing so.