Why You Can No Longer Fly Balloons At Parks And Beaches In Laguna Beach

The beachfront city of Laguna Beach is banning the use and sale of all balloons in city parks, beaches, and other public places, the latest in a growing push from California lawmakers and city leaders to enact restrictions.

The city council approved the measure last year. The idea for a ban was begun by an ocean conservation activist and is supported by several environmental groups.

What's the problem with balloons?

Southern California Edison said balloons contributed to over 1,000 power outages, on average, between 2015 and 2020. In 2020 alone, outages related to metallic balloons affected more than one million SCE customers. Metallic balloons are made up of foil or Mylar, and conduct electricity.

The sad reality is that all balloons, no matter how festive, end up as trash that buyers often fail to dispose of properly, or allow to float away. The remnants end up being eaten by wildlife and harming it.

According to Surfrider, the ocean conservation group, “[Balloons] along with strings and gender reveal confetti, pose multiple threats to the beach environment, animals, and sea life and humans.” And when people accidentally release balloons, or don’t bother to dispose of them properly, the city (and its tax money) has to clean up that beach litter.

Laguna Beach isn't the first

The cities of Glendale and Hermosa Beach ban the sale of metallic balloons capable of floating away, and Encinitas banned the sale of helium-filled balloons in January 2022.

Laguna Beach is seeing those bans and raising them. The beach city is prohibiting the sales of all balloons, latex and metallic, as well as a ban on the flying of balloons at public places like parks, beaches, and streets. People would be fined for up to $500 for violation of the law. Balloons could still be flown in private and commercial spaces.

Whose balloons get popped?

The balloon sales ban would only affect Laguna Beach sales. Balloon sales outside the city would continue in whatever jurisdictions still allow them. So Laguna Beach balloon retailers have voiced their displeasure.

“We believe the impact does not match the intent,” Tim James of the California Grocers Association told the council in a meeting last year. He said the ordinances would create “unintended consequences for Laguna Beach grocers while rewarding retailers not located within the city.”

That includes online retailers, too, like Amazon.

What about allowing balloons that don’t float away?

That’s something Glendale built into their ban. The city allows the use of metallic balloons that don’t float away — in other words, those filled with plain old air — and that are attached to a pole or structure.

California Governor Gavin Newsom signed into law in 2022 Assembly Bill 847 which requires a warning on balloons of their danger and the testing of metallic balloons that don’t cause electrical short circuiting on power lines in order to phase them into the consumer market.