Proposed bill gets tough on smokers' butts

PORTLAND, Ore. - Putting a ban on smoking in bars and restaurants in Oregon seems to have created a growing littering problem.

Now, some Oregon state lawmakers want to make flicking your cigarette butts into the street or onto the sidewalk a crime.

Cigarette butts are trash just like anything else but supporters of the bill say society doesn't treat them like trash, and that's a problem.

The irony is that our tax dollars help pay for the cleanup, so you might as well grab some money and wrap it around your cigarette before you toss it on the sidewalk.

And when it rains at night, Amanda Dodge with Central City Concern spends even more time cleaning up discarded cigarette butts.

“When they're wet, they either stick to the ground or the broom,” Dodge said, “and if they've been here a while, they're really hard to pick up and we're not supposed to use our hands.”

Dodge was working outside a row of downtown Portland bars where patrons now have to go outside to smoke.

She says Friday and Saturday mornings are the worst on her shift. “We're just trying to make the city look presentable,” she said as she swept trash and butts into a dustpan.

It's a problem Deborah Schallert wants the state legislature to address. Her proposed bill would make smokers liable for tossing their cigarette butts with a steep $2,500 maximum fine or with community service – such as cleaning up cigarette butts.

“Other kinds of litter people, wouldn't consider throwing on the ground,” Schallert told KATU News, “but for some reason this seems to continue and I’d like people to think twice before they do that.”

“It truly is litter and it has a very strong, long lasting effect on the environment,” Shallert added.

Schallert used to be a state park ranger. Like Amanda Dodge, she knows what it's like to pick up after other people.

Dodge said she'd like to see more smokers be more responsible with their trash, but ironically, littering is her job security.

“If there weren't cigarette butts on the ground, we probably wouldn't have a job,” she said.

Shallert said the bill goes to a hearing on Tuesday. It's the second time she's pushed the bill in the House and she's anxious to see how far it makes it this time.