Malathion Opponents Say Tourists Are Unaware of Spraying Danger

In their latest attack against spraying for the Medfly, Orange County malathion opponents are turning their attention to tourists who may have found themselves unwittingly exposed to the Southland’s raging Mediterranean fruit fly war.

Local activists opposed to aerial spraying conducted an informal phone sampling and say they found that “the vast majority” of hotels contacted in Orange County’s spray zones did not let guests know that they would be hit with malathion and might want to stay indoors, cover their cars and take other precautions.

Indeed, the manager of one Anaheim hotel told The Times: “The guests don’t ask us (about the spraying), so we don’t tell them.”

The anti-malathion activists are now demanding that the state force hotels in the spray zones to notify their guests about upcoming dousings out of concern for health and property. Hotels currently are under no legal obligation to do so.

The activists are firing off their latest salvo today during a press conference in front of the Anaheim Convention Center, with state Assemblyman Curt Pringle (R-Garden Grove), Orange County Supervisor Roger R. Stanton and several local city council members.

Garden Grove resident Robert Taylor, an organizer of local anti-malathion activists, said the apparent failure of many hotels to notify guests about the malathion campaign could leave the guests and their cars in danger.

State officials, in quarantining massive areas around Medfly finds, have said that the insect has probably spread through the careless transportation of infested fruit from one area to another. But Taylor said that if tourists are not told about the fly problem and the response to it, they may unknowingly take contaminated fruit in and out of the area.

Pringle, in urging the state to keep its tourists better informed, said in an interview Thursday that “the entire Medfly notification process is faulty, and the problem with the hotels and motels is a part of that.”

But state officials showed no inclination to yield to their critics’ demands.

Gera Curry, spokeswoman for the Department of Food and Agriculture, said she sees no need for the state to require, or even encourage hotels and motels to notify their guests about the sprayings and the precautions that they can take.

“If the motel people want” to notify guests, Curry added, “that’s up to them. But if they have no problem with it, why should we throw out problems for them? . . . “ Ann Hoffman, director of tourism development for the Anaheim Visitor and Convention Bureau, agreed.

Officials at several of the larger hotels in the spray zones said they have adopted a policy of notifying guests of the spraying.

Meanwhile, state agriculture officials Thursday signed regulations that would give the state permanent authority to quarantine and use pesticides to fight the Medfly.