Passes Resolution After Backing Off From Ordinance : Laguna Beach Council Votes City to Be Nuclear-Free Zone

The Laguna Beach City Council backed off from making it a crime to manufacture, use or transport nuclear devices in the city, but it went on record as opposing such activities and declared the city a nuclear-free zone.

“I was for the ordinance (that would have made it a punishable misdemeanor to be involved with nuclear materials), but I was pleased that the council felt it was important enough to at least support the resolution,” Councilman Robert F. Gentry said Wednesday.

After 90 minutes of sometimes emotional debate Tuesday night, the original nuclear-free ordinance proposed by Councilwoman Lida Lenney was replaced by a simple resolution that was adopted, 4 to 1.

“The important thing,” said Gentry, the only council member besides Lenney to support the proposal for the original ordinance, “is that the city has made a strong statement.”

It was Mayor Neil Fitzpatrick who spelled out the compromise resolution, which said “that no nuclear weapons shall be produced, tested, deployed, launched, maintained or stored within the city of Laguna Beach.”

“I believe very strongly in the power of resolutions,” Fitzpatrick said later. “We (the City Council) have used them exclusively in many instances, including the fight over the offshore oil drilling issue.”

The original ordinance would have made Laguna Beach a “Nuclear-Free Zone,” with signs to that effect posted on roadways at all city limits, and fines and/or jail sentences for offenders.

The single dissenting vote was cast by Councilman Dan Kenney, who said that, taking the long view, he was concerned that if every city in the United States declared itself a nuclear-free zone, a unilateral nuclear freeze could result.

Attached to material for the proposed ordinance was information that a number of cities--such as Chicago and several California cities, including Napa--have nuclear-free zone laws.