San Diego Municipal Code § 54.0901 Declaration of Purpose
§54.0901 Declaration of Purpose
The Council of the City of San Diego finds and declares that:
(a) Novelty lighters have features which are attractive to children, including visual effects, flashing lights, musical sounds, or toy-like designs.
(b) As a result of this attraction of novelty lighters to children, children have inadvertently started fires causing injury, death and destruction of property.
(c) Despite the Consumer Product Safety Commission’s recall of thousands of novelty lighters since 1996 due to their danger to public safety and despite the promulgation of lighter safety standards, fires caused by children playing with novelty lighters continue to occur and at an increased rate.
(d) Juvenile fire setting has been identified as the fastest growing fire threat in the United States with more than 300 people killed, 30 percent being children, and almost $1 billion in property destroyed.
(e) Many public safety agencies support the prohibition of the sale and distribution of novelty lighters, including the San Diego Burn Institute, Burn Centers, the USFA and the San Diego County Fire Chiefs Association.
(f) Various local governments across the nation have adopted ordinances prohibiting the retail sale, retail gift, and retail distribution of novelty lighters in their jurisdictions.
(g) The continued retail sale, retail gift, and retail distribution of novelty lighters represents a serious threat to public safety within the City of San Diego.
(h) The functions of novelty lighters can be achieved by alternative means without posing the danger to public health and safety that novelty lighters present.
(Added 4-23-2008 by O-19741 N.S; effective 5-23-2008.)