Time to let cities ban smoking at beaches
Fort Lauderdale commissioners expected to approve resolution urging all state legislators and Gov. DeSantis to support the bill
FORT LAUDERDALE — Imagine a beach without butts — cigarette butts, that is.It could happen, depending on state legislators.
Under current Florida law, only legislators can ban smoking in public places. But that might change if a new bill gets signed into law that lets cities make the call on whether they want to ban smoking at the beach or public parks.
Officials in Fort Lauderdale, Hollywood and other coastal cities have griped for years about not being able to ban smoking at their own beaches.
On Wednesday night, Fort Lauderdale commissioners are expected to approve a resolution urging all state legislators and Gov. Ron DeSantis to support the bill.
Joe Gruters, a senator from Sarasota, has been trying to get the bill passed for years now. A companion bill will come before the Florida House of Representatives.
“The bill has died before,” Fort Lauderdale Vice Mayor Heather Moraitis said. ”Hopefully it gets traction this year.”
Critics complain about cigarette butts winding up in the ocean, blown by the wind. Many more get left behind in the sand. And then there’s the smell. To nonsmokers, it all adds up to an unwelcome assault on the senses.
Fort Lauderdale resident Paula Yukna says she heads the other way whenever she gets a whiff of the stuff on her daily beach walks.
“One lifeguard gets there before me and he’s shown me all the cigarette butts,” she said. “Me, I would ban it all over the world. I’m antismoke. Ban it.”
Fort Lauderdale’s resolution ticks off stats explaining why a smoking ban might be a good idea: About 34 million adults in the U.S. smoke cigarettes, exposing an estimated 58 million nonsmokers to secondhand smoke. Cigarette smoking causes more than 480,000 deaths a year. That includes 41,000 people whose deaths were caused by their exposure to secondhand smoke.
Hollywood: Would-be rebels
Dick Blattner pushed for a beach-wide smoking ban in Hollywood five years ago when he was on the city commission. In the end, his colleagues squashed the idea, saying they were worried about running afoul of state law.
“The city attorney advised us not to go against the state,” Blattner said. “We should have said we’re going to do it anyway. If we did it and the state slapped our hands, we would have been no worse for doing it.”
The ban would have made Hollywood the first city in South Florida to snuff out cigarettes, cigars and tobacco pipes at the beach, Hollywood officials said at the time.
Under the proposed ban, people caught smoking at the beach would have faced fines from $50 to $200. Smokers who lit up at a city park or playground would have faced even steeper fines starting at $500.
Smoke in your face
Deerfield Beach is also no stranger to the topic of a smoking ban.
“It’s come up many times,” Deerfield Beach Mayor Bill Ganz said. “It’s been a hot topic for a lot of residents over the years. The cigarette butts in the sand are just absolutely terrible and it makes it hard to enjoy the beach when you have people right next to you smoking.”
When it does come up, Ganz says he lets residents know the city is hamstrung.
“The ruling on that is really out of our hands,” Ganz said. “It’s in the state’s hands.”
But if that ever changes, Ganz predicts Deerfield Beach might be one of the cities lining up to prohibit smoking at the beach.
There’s just one possible problem with a ban.
“Enforcement is going to be tricky,” Ganz said. “It’s great to have it on the books but it makes things tough if you can’t enforce it. I’m sure there’s a way we can come
up with something that makes sense. I know there would be a lot of residents happy to hear this coming down the pipeline.”
Bobby Lieberman, an anti-smoking advocate who left Hollywood for Fort Lauderdale in 2015, has been urging both cities to pass a ban for years.
“There wouldn’t be any butts if people stopped smoking,” he said. “If the cities banned smoking on the beach, it would be the best thing. It would be wonderful.”