Time to ban smoking at B.C. campgrounds
ncredibly, during this summer of runaway wildfires across British Columbia, B.C. Parks still allows cigarette smoking in campgrounds.
Recently, we stayed at the Bamberton Provincial Park campsite for two nights. The campground had signs noting a high fire risk and carrying no-fire and no-smoking warnings. The campground, in turn, is situated within the Malahat region, the fire risk of which was rated “extreme.”
Notwithstanding this, people around us were smoking in their campsites. When we asked B.C. Parks staff why, they told us that the no-smoking rule applies only in common campground areas, not individual campsites. They explained that campsites are “like a hotel room” and campers can smoke there as they wish.
This approach is troubling and possibly very risky.
The fire risk is the same in individual campsites and common areas. Either cigarette smoking is unsafe due to sparks, ashes and cigarette butts, or it is not. If it is unsafe, as logically it must be, then it must be banned in both individual and common areas.
Furthermore, only weeks ago, the Times Colonist reported on research that shows smokers throw cigarette butts on the ground, as they do not consider it to be littering. Only one such incident could create more heartache and tragic loss from wildfires in this devastating season.
The B.C. Parks argument for its position – that campsites are “like a hotel room” and that people can therefore smoke in them – makes no sense. Many hotels in Canada (and beyond) forbid people from smoking in rooms and fine them when they do. If hotels can ban smoking, then B.C. Parks most certainly can in tinder-dry campgrounds where children abound; and if B.C. Parks wants to follow hotels’ lead, then it should do likewise.
Beyond the pressing issue of fire risk, protection from secondhand smoke in provincial park campsites appears lower than health protection in B.C.’s municipal parks. For example, given the close proximity of many sites, the protection at Bamberton falls short of what is provided for in regional bylaws that require a seven-metre no-smoking prohibition around doors and air intakes, and ban public-park smoking altogether.
Finally, quite apart from risks of any kind, the idea of camping is to get out of the city and enjoy nature; it is simply not pleasant to have the smell of trees and ocean drowned out by clouds of cigarette smoke.
In declaring a state of emergency this month to support wildfire response, the provincial government asked British Columbians to do their part in preventing human-caused fires.
The same must be asked of B.C. Parks.