Ban The Butt Pacific Grove

We are asking Pacific Grove City Council to pass a citywide Ban The Butt ordinance, similar to ones in Santa Cruz County.

Cigarette butts are the top items found at Surfrider beach cleanups and we need to stop this litter at the source. A ban on the retail sales of tobacco products with a butt or plastic tip would help solve the problem.

We are encouraging all Monterey County cities to pass a Ban The Butt ordinance, starting with Pacific Grove. This would be similar to what the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors passed in October 2024 and the Santa Cruz City Council passed in June 2025. 

Click here to email the Pacific Grove City Council and ask them to Ban The Butt! 

This issue is particularly relevant to the Monterey Bay region. A NOAA and Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary analysis of shoreline cleanup data documented 231,735 cigarette butts, representing 23.1% of all items collected in the study dataset and making cigarette butts the single largest individual category of debris recorded.

Pacific Grove’s own community-led data further demonstrates the scale and persistence of this pollution. In 2019, local volunteers counted 31,461 cigarette butts along approximately four miles of shoreline. In 2025, more than 26,000 cigarette filters were counted along a shorter 3.3-mile stretch.

Surfrider has spent decades addressing cigarette litter through education, receptacles, community engagement, and beach cleanups. These efforts remain valuable, but the continued prevalence of cigarette filters in coastal environments demonstrates the need to complement downstream solutions with policies that address pollution at its source.

We believe the proposed policy is an important step toward reducing the creation of single-use plastic waste before it reaches our streets, waterways, and ocean. Our support is focused on the environmental consequences of the plastic cigarette filter and is not intended to criminalize individuals who smoke or prohibit tobacco use.

We respectfully encourage the Beautification and Natural Resources Committee to recommend that the Pacific Grove City Council consider prohibiting the sale of filtered cigarettes within the city. We believe Pacific Grove has an opportunity to take meaningful action to protect its coastline and contribute to broader efforts to reduce cigarette-filter pollution throughout the Monterey Bay region.