Port Angeles and Sequim police rolled out on butt busts Saturday under the state’s new no-smoking law, but they could issue no citations.
Port Angeles officers were summoned to Delaney’s lounge at Front and Lincoln streets after a young man lit an herbal cigarette and left it burning in an ashtray Saturday night.
The police said they were powerless to cite the man because he was not smoking the cigarette and that it wasn’t a tobacco product anyway.
At VFW Post 4760 at 169 Washington St., Sequim, a passerby reported “lots of smoking going on inside” Saturday afternoon.
When police arrived, they were told the premises were a private club and exempt from the tobacco ban.
At Delaney’s, owner Gretchen Delaney said city employees have removed ashtrays from near the doors of the lounge and restaurant.
The law says no one may smoke within 25 feet of doorways, windows and ventilation ducts.
The lack of ashtrays didn’t deter smokers, though.
“We have quite a few cigarette butts outside of our building,” Delaney said.
