Denver joins other cities in suing for cigarette cleanup
[Source: Denverite]
Other governments, like Baltimore and Sacramento County, have filed similar litigation, and Denver is looking to join them in pushing deep-pocketed tobacco companies to pay for cigarette cleanup.
“I think we’re really at the vanguard of this effort. We had been in conversations for about a year about it,” Johnston said. “When there are people that should bear the cost they’ve imposed on taxpayers, we want them to bear those costs and not taxpayers.”
The mayor said he’d like the companies to both compensate the city for the cleanup costs and to find an environmentally friendly alternative to the filters.
Cigarette butts swim in an alley off 17th Avenue in North Captiol Hill. Aug. 11, 2026.Kevin J. Beaty/Denverite
“The filters themselves are useless, but they’re a huge nuisance to cities,” Johnston said. “We want to see them … make them biodegradable and cover the cost we’ve had to bear to clean them up.”
He said he made the decision to sue along with City Attorney Miko Brown.
The city partnered with a law firm from Kansas — McIntyre Schnieders — on the suit. Its website says it has recovered more than $1 billion in claims for victims and municipalities in medical malpractice, defective products, and environmental negligence cases.
“All of our city attorneys are working every day on day-to-day enforcement around the city,” Johnston said. “We didn’t have a lot of bandwidth to spend to bring a national suit like this, but we think it’s the right one to bring and are delighted to have partners to help us do it.”
