Should kids be allowed in tanning beds?

Kids in CA will have to wait until they’re 18 to tan in a bed. (AP)

California girls who dream about the sun-kissed skin glorified in a song by Katy Perry will have to wait until they turn 18 before they can get the effect from tanning beds under a new first-in-the-nation law.

California Gov. Jerry Brown announced Sunday that he had signed into law a bill that prevents children under 18 from using the popular tanning method. The law takes effect Jan. 1.

97.3 KIRO FM host Luke Burbank says he thinks the new law is a good move.

“If you’re in California, and you’re a kid, you can walk outside and damage your skin as much as you want, but as far as allowing businesses to profit off of it, I actually totally agree with this rule.”

Ross & Burbank co-host Dave Ross points out that kids will still be at risk for skin cancer.

“If the idea though, is to protect kids from cancer, then there’s no real difference between the parents who let their kids go into a tanning salon and the parents that let their kids go out on a California beach without sunblock.”

Listen to discussion: Should kids be allowed in tanning beds?

The bill’s author, California state Sen. Ted Lieu called skin cancer “a rising epidemic and the leading cause of cancer death for women between 25 and 29.”

“Girls in affluent California communities especially are surrounded by the message that being tanned all year round is cool,” Christina Clarke, of the Cancer Prevention Institute of California, said in a recent statement supporting Lieu’s bill.

Burbank says through his own teenage daughter he’s been able to witness a range of tanning use by teens.

“There’s a whole spectrum. There are the girls that wouldn’t tan at all, in the artificial way, and then there are girls that go all the time, and kind of have this frequent flier account at the local tanning place, and then there are the girls in the middle who generally go before they’re going to go on vacation, or before they’re going to go to a dance.”

Burbank says in Washington, which has considered, but doesn’t currently have any age restrictions in place, people should really think about whether tanning actually even makes them look cool.

“If you’re a high school student at Ballard and you have the complexion of George Hamilton during the month of let’s say January, it doesn’t look normal. You look weird.”

By JAMIE GRISWOLD, MyNorthwest.com Editor
The Associated Press contributed to this report.