Smokers wanting to light up on Bethany or South Bethany beaches may soon have to take their cigarettes elsewhere.
Officials in the Delaware towns are looking into an ordinance that would ban smoking on the beach.
No ban will take place before next summer, said John Fields, a member of the South Bethany Town Council, who will be on the planning commission researching smoking bans.
The decision will probably be made in the next three to four months, after the commission has gathered research and input from residents, he said. The commission’s first meeting is set for Aug. 16.
Mr. Fields said he expects some sort of ban will be enacted, although it’s not definite.
If a ban passes, the Delaware beach towns would join other regions across the country in trying to keep their sandy retreats smoke-free as beaches become the next target of anti-smoking legislation.
“Smoking is being banned everywhere you go,” Mr. Fields said. “Everywhere you turn, there is a new area where smoking is not allowed. I guess the beaches are next in line.”
Almost all California beaches are smoke-free. And two weeks ago, the Surfside Beach Town Council passed South Carolina’s first smoking ban. After a smoking ban was proposed to the Rhode Island General Assembly, the state health department decided to test a voluntary no-smoking initiative at all Rhode Island state beaches. More cities are considering bans.
Besides Bethany and South Bethany, no other beaches near Washington — including Ocean City, Virginia Beach and the Outer Banks in North Carolina — are considering smoking bans.
And not all attempted smoking bans have passed. Efforts in Cocoa Beach, Fla., were unsuccessful last year, as were attempts for a statewide beach-smoking ban in Hawaii.
Some beach bans have been around for years. In 1995, Sharon, Mass., was one of the first U.S. communities to ban smoking on beaches and in parks. Smoking bans gained publicity when California’s beaches began going smoke-free in 2003.
Outdoor smoking bans have stemmed mainly from the environmental concerns over cigarette litter rather than health concerns.
“As more cities and states have addressed the problem of indoor smoking, more communities seem to be sensitive to the issue of cigarette litter and just the role of tobacco in these outdoor settings,” said Bronson Frick, associate director of Americans for Nonsmokers’ Rights, a Berkeley, Calif., advocacy group that works to promote smoke-free indoor workplaces and public places.
Cigarette butts, which are toxic, are consistently listed as the top piece of litter found in beach cleanups, said Robert Berger, president of Healthier Solutions Inc. in Santa Monica, Calif.
More than 15,000 cigarette butts were found during Delaware’s Coastal Cleanup in September, according to the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control.
But smokers’ rights groups argue such figures appear more shocking than they should because hundreds of people spend hours collecting the cigarette litter.
The numbers are largely blown out of proportion, said Michael J. McFadden, the Mid-Atlantic regional director of the Smokers Club Inc., a smokers’ rights group that opposes indoor and outdoor smoking bans.
Opponents also say that bans have little effect on the amount of cigarette litter that ends up on beaches, because the rain often washes butts left on streets or sewers into the ocean and onto the beaches.
A fall 2004 report by the Los Angeles County’s Department of Beaches and Harbors found no change in the number of cigarette butts found on two beaches that enacted trial smoking bans for the summer.
“Smoking bans that have forced smokers out on the streets have very likely increased the amount of cigarette butts on our beaches,” Mr. McFadden said.
Enforcement is another issue.
The Bethany and South Bethany councils will be looking into how a ban could be enforced, Mr. Fields said.
“How do you enforce this on an open public beach?” he said. “And I’m reluctant to hand that duty over to lifeguards. Their primary job is to keep people safe.”
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