No smoking on public beaches or parks?

[B. de Corbin]

OK, I understand about enclosed places...

But outdoors?

New Jersey, I'm thinking maybe you're sliding into a bit more control than humans should be subject to. Perhaps concentration camps for smokers are coming down the tubes.

"I don't think the government needs to be involved," said Bryan Adamson, 32, of Blairstown. "As a smoker I use common sense and respect for the environment and those around me," he said.

Others said it was time to put an end to the outdoors as a last sanctuary for those who choose to light up.

[DanieMarie]

Re: No smoking on public beaches or parks?

As much as this sucks for smokers and as much as smoking outdoors does not bother me in the slightest, I understand why cities do this. From what I remember (it was a while ago), in Victoria, BC, they banned it because the city got sick of cleaning up cigarette butts all the time in parks and beaches. There were warnings, and people still threw their butts on the ground and didn't use the trays, so it got banned.

Provincial parks also ban smoking because of the forest fire risk issue. It's a minimal risk, but it can get very, very dry in BC in the summer and even little things can cause forest fires. They don't want to chance it.

Both really suck for the smokers who respect the environment and the people around them, though. My BF always uses a portable ashtray, for example (not in Germany though....Germans don't care about cigarette butts everywhere).

[B. de Corbin]

Re: No smoking on public beaches or parks?

I'm good with fining people for littering. And, if it's a no fire day (we have them here during dry weather), I get that (although I doubt if many forest fires are started by smokers on beaches).

I'm not good with being systematically excluded from public life.

[DanieMarie]

Re: No smoking on public beaches or parks?

Well, you said parks, so I thought that would mean all kinds of parks Like I said, they're pretty paranoid about forest fires. They're serious business, very expensive to put out, and forests are part of BC's heritage (actually, that's most of the reason most people go to BC in the first place). They can also get out of hand and threaten homes. I get why they're super, super strict about it. For the record, you can't build fires in BC provincial parks either unless they are in designated areas (which are limited to campsites).

I'm good with fining people for littering too. I'm not sure why they took the decision they did, but maybe it was just getting to be too much of a pain to enforce. Totalitarian control of peoples' lives isn't usually on the city of Victoria's agenda. It's a pretty laid back place. It could also have been a public pressure thing. The city has the lowest smoking rate in the province and I think the province itself has something like 10% smoking rate. People really, really hate smoking there. Once again, not saying I agree with that. I FULLY support bans indoors, but outside is a different matter. I'd rather have smokers go outside and do their thing than have them smoke indoors. In the first situation, people can smoke and people like me can still go out. In the second scenario, groups of people like me have to stay home too, and there aren't that few of us. In a way, I'm systematically excluded from public life here for the opposite reason. I miss Canada sometimes! I feel like smoking outside is a fair compromise. Unlike indoor events, smoke dissipates at outdoor events.

[B. de Corbin]

Re: No smoking on public beaches or parks?

I'm thinking that, in the interest of getting along, there may be times and places where people ought to just lump it.

That goes for both smokers and non smokers, as well as other issues...

[thalassa]

Re: No smoking on public beaches or parks?

I've spent hours on the beach cleaning up after smokers. Its probably 50% of the trash I clean up when I go. And its not just the butts themselves, but the plastic wrappers and the cartons. Considering the sheer number of people that do it and don't give a shit, I'm for banning it. While we're at it, I'm for banning plastic shopping bags and Styrofoam.

Heck, the hubby even just chimed in (and he's a smoker) that if he'd just take his ecig, he doesn't have a problem with it. Then again, we live here. We give a damn about our watershed. I care about where my kids play. And yeah, it sucks for the people like the Hubby who do clean up after themselves...but (as he just when I asked his opinion) "I'm outnumbered by assholes and SOB's and I think its perfectly fair to ask me to light up off the beach if it gets them off the beach too."

Its difficult to enforce littering at a beach--You know how you know who litters at the beach? When they've left the beach, there's a pile of trash they didn't take with them...by then, did anyone get their names? Where they live (because there's a good chance they are tourists, so double them not giving a damn about the state of our beaches)? Their plates on the car, which is parked half a mile away? Chased them down through the throng of people on the boardwalk? But smoking? The Beach Patrol can spot that from 50 feet away...

[DanieMarie]

Re: No smoking on public beaches or parks?

I've spent hours on the beach cleaning up after smokers. Its probably 50% of the trash I clean up when I go. And its not just the butts themselves, but the plastic wrappers and the cartons. Considering the sheer number of people that do it and don't give a shit, I'm for banning it. While we're at it, I'm for banning plastic shopping bags and Styrofoam.

Heck, the hubby even just chimed in (and he's a smoker) that if he'd just take his ecig, he doesn't have a problem with it. Then again, we live here. We give a damn about our watershed. I care about where my kids play. And yeah, it sucks for the people like the Hubby who do clean up after themselves...but (as he just when I asked his opinion) "I'm outnumbered by assholes and SOB's and I think its perfectly fair to ask me to light up off the beach if it gets them off the beach too."

Its difficult to enforce littering at a beach--You know how you know who litters at the beach? When they've left the beach, there's a pile of trash they didn't take with them...by then, did anyone get their names? Where they live (because there's a good chance they are tourists, so double them not giving a damn about the state of our beaches)? Their plates on the car, which is parked half a mile away? Chased them down through the throng of people on the boardwalk? But smoking? The Beach Patrol can spot that from 50 feet away...

Yep...it's the same where I'm from too.

[B. de Corbin]

Re: No smoking on public beaches or parks?

Thalassa, I understand.

I just got back from a week of camping at the Huron shore. I take care of my butts (snuff 'em out and they go in my pocket). Before I left, I picked up the two butts that were on our campsite before we got there, as well as some small bits of plastic.

I don't believe I saw any butts on the beach, if I had, I'd have picked them up.

Possibly there is a better sense of caring for the place you are here than there is where you are? At any rate, our experiences differ. Things may well be different in urban Michigan areas...

I'd much prefer cultivating the ethic of cleanliness & respect for the sensibilities of others than banning behavior that might be problematic.

[thalassa]

Re: No smoking on public beaches or parks?

I wanted to add something to my post, but everytime I tried my stupid computer froze, so I'm double posting... (ETA: or not, people posted while I was writing, lol)

Many beaches ban dogs too. Because the number of dog owners that clean up after their pet are way lower than those that don't, and dog poo is bad for the bacterial levels at beaches to keep them swimmable.

Similarly, cigarette butts and other cigarette trash (lighters, plastic on cartons, etc) are bad for the wildlife at the beach and in the ocean, and since it makes up the bulk of the trash (here's a single beach clean-up's stats from 5 years ago--its not the data I was looking for, but its pretty typical), I don't object to its being banned.

But, like I said, I don't object to plastic shopping bags, styrofoam, or (which I left out above) plastic bottles being banned either (at the beach, or in different "park" atmospheres where its problematic).

What I don't object to though (and I think might be a reasonable compromise) is having smoking areas before you get to the beach--like in the areas where people shower, etc. Have a little pavilion with butt cans and whatnot that get cleaned regularly that are near the beach entrances.

[thalassa]

Re: No smoking on public beaches or parks?

I just got back from a week of camping at the Huron shore. I take care of my butts (snuff 'em out and they go in my pocket). Before I left, I picked up the two butts that were on our campsite before we got there, as well as some small bits of plastic.

I don't believe I saw any butts on the beach, if I had, I'd have picked them up.

Possibly there is a better sense of caring for the place you are here than there is where you are? At any rate, our experiences differ. Things may well be different in urban Michigan areas...

I think some of it is sheer population density. There are something like 1.6 million people living in the greater metropolitan area of Hampton Roads--about 700,000 of them live in Virginia Beach and Norfolk, which is where most of the beaches are. This area also gets something like 17 million tourists yearly, most of them in the summer. Assuming everyone goes to the beach at least once between May and September, that is something like an average of 171,000 people at the beach every day (18.7 million people divided by 7 x 23 weeks from the beginning of May til the end of Sept, though the real season goes from Memorial to Labor Day---I did the math in my head, so it might be off a bit)...probably 75% of them on VA Bch's beaches, which only stretch a couple of miles.

Jersey's beaches are probably more crowded than ours are...

Compare that to (even around here) campsites and beaches with much less population density, particularly those that cater less to tourists and more towards locals or outdoorsy types...and yeah, there are less problems there too. We go camping at a national sea shore, only about 2 hours away, where there's almost nothing to worry about. At the military beaches, I find almost nothing to clean up, except what storms or tides bring in from the public ones. And campgrounds tend to attract to people that camp...most of whom, in my experience, practice an ethic of "LNT" or "Pack in, pack out" or "leave it cleaner than you got it" or whatever they call it...

Weekenders at the beach though? They are all sorts...and they are many. There are too many people that don't think littering is a big deal or that figure no one will notice or that think that "its just me, it won't matter" or that somehow *they* are different and entitled or some combination thereof.

...and sometimes the elements get in the way of even those of us trying to do the right thing. I took the kids to the beach to walk and pick up shells, out of season in early March. Because it was drizzling, I let Collin take his umbrella...a random updrafting gust took it right out of his hand (knocked him over too) and right into the water. I tried to rescue the umbrella (both because of the littering and because it was his favorite umbrella), but the waves took it too deep too fast... Needless to say, somewhere, there is an umbrella decomposing in the ocean with my son's name on it.

I'd much prefer cultivating the ethic of cleanliness & respect for the sensibilities of others than banning behavior that might be problematic.

I would too...but I think when a behavior has shown to be problematic, a community has the right to ban it, if it proves more realistic and cost effective than cultivating the ethic....and how do you cultivate an ethic for 18 million people, when 95% of them aren't even from here?

[DanieMarie]

Re: No smoking on public beaches or parks?

I think Thal really hit the nail on the head. Even if you cultivate that ethic in your own community/region/country, that doesn't really help when there are a ton of tourists from other places that might not share those values. I can tell you that here, throwing your cigarette butt on the ground isn't really considered littering, but in Scotland, my boyfriend got in trouble for it 5 minutes after stepping off the bus into Glasgow (seriously). When cities and parks just can't make it work and want to protect an asset like a natural landscape and ecosystem, they often opt for bans.

[ChainLightning]

Re: No smoking on public beaches or parks?

I'm far more in favor of cultivating that ethic than outright banning. But trying to instill ethics and morals in people that just simply don't give a shit isn't just impossible, it's a waste of time, energy and funds. Keep the ASSHATS off the beach and out of the parks? Sounds good, all things considered.

Then I run into what happens when I light up, regardless of whether or not I'm standing in front of a "no smoking" sign. *Somebody* is going to get their panties in a twist because I simply don't give a shit. In my view, laws are merely suggestions. Banning certain behaviors, of mine, in some specific locale, is absolutely no guarantee that those specific behaviors will actually change.

Whether I'm policing up my own trash, or that of others as well, is a matter of personal pride, when I do it. That is, I take pride in caring for resources that can otherwise do without my entire existence. Or indeed anyone's.





Yeah. I'm a fickle old coot that doesn't follow rules all that well and yet sometimes I exhibit an extraordinary consciousness and awareness of my impact on the environment at large. I'll often flick a cigarette butt out into the yard, here, or even out the window of my truck, once in a while (depends on the wind and the fire danger), while driving. I'll also make a coffee can, or some other receptacle, available for cigarette butt disposal. Inconsistent, as a rule. Apparently.

[anunitu]

Re: No smoking on public beaches or parks?

When I am outdoors and smoke I kill the cig with my shoe(I put it out on the sole of my shoe) and put the butt in my shirt pocket. I never just toss a butt on the ground.

[thalassa]

Re: No smoking on public beaches or parks?

Two papers on the problems of leaching from cigarette butts:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3088461/

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2697937/

and, just because I think its funny...yeah, it is completely off topic, but hilarious...I've seen it (I went to a nearby college after HS, and spent many a weekend here with friends)

[B. de Corbin]

Re: No smoking on public beaches or parks?

OK, I'll concede that there are reasons why specific areas may choose to ban cigarettes in parks.

But I hope nobody goes overboard and decides to fix problems where problems aren't. That comment about taking away the last refuge of those who want to light up is deeply disturbing.

Reminds me why I avoid cities with the same gusto I avoid rabies.