San Francisco stores could soon be fined $500 for selling cheap plastic butane torches that lock in the "on" position, under an ordinance from Board of Supervisors President Rafael Mandelman. Fire officials say the lockable lighters, popular with people who smoke fentanyl and other drugs on the street, have been linked to fires, burn injuries and at least one death in the city this year. A second violation within a year would cost $1,000.
What the ordinance would do
The proposal, File No. 261089, was introduced Sept. 29 and would amend the San Francisco Fire Code to ban the sale, offer for sale and knowing paid delivery of lockable butane lighters with plastic components to any address or person in the city, according to the Board of Supervisors' legislative record. It would let the City Attorney seek court orders, money and attorneys' fees from violators, and let the Fire Department write rules and guidance to carry out the ban. Supervisors Matt Dorsey, Alan Wong, Danny Sauter and Stephen Sherrill are co-sponsors.
The file sits with the board's Public Safety and Neighborhood Services Committee under the 30-day rule, and the city's record listed no hearing date when Bay Area Brief checked on Friday morning.
Why fire officials want it
The Fire Department has recorded more than 30 butane-related fires over the past six years, causing about $3.2 million in property damage, The San Francisco Standard reported. Twenty-one of those came last year. Fire Chief Dean Crispen told ABC7 that the city has had three fires this year tied specifically to locked butane lighters, and one of them killed a community member.
The danger is the lock itself, Crispen said: "Drug users in many cases want to have that continuous flame to continue to light their pipe and the problem that we have is that the locking butane mechanism, once you turn it on, if you fall asleep or pass out, it remains on and it can light other items on fire and immediate area and then potentially the entire building."
Tenderloin resident Kimberly Saunders told ABC7 her torch would not shut off and set her hand, leg and bed on fire. ABC7 reported she lost a finger and may lose another. Vancouver banned the lighters in 2024 after six deaths and 79 injuries between January 2023 and April 2024, according to ABC7, which said no U.S. city has banned them.
Restaurants, smoke shops and the street
Mandelman said his office spent more than a year working with fire officials and the restaurant industry so that legitimate uses survive. Laurie Thomas of the Golden Gate Restaurant Association told ABC7 that commercial kitchens use higher-end torches for dishes like crème brûlée, and that Mandelman's team said the ban is not meant to hit those products.
Mandelman told The Standard in September that he expects pushback from downtown smoke shops, which already face a midnight curfew in the Tenderloin and, since this year, in SoMa. "We're not targeting smoke shops in particular," he said. "But you know, if they are selling a product that is being used in a dangerous way, we're going to try to regulate and restrict that." He also told The Standard at the time that the devices could still be bought online; the ordinance as filed covers knowing paid deliveries to San Francisco addresses.
Not everyone on the street agrees. "It'll just raise the value of them on the streets," SoMa resident Ian Lawless told The Standard, adding that people may switch to other risky options like propane torches.
For more on conditions on San Francisco's streets, see our report on the city's tent count rising 29%.