Smoking In Bethany
February 16th, 2008 by Joe CiccantiHere are some details regarding the Bethany Beach Town Council’s decision to ban smoking. There will be a total ban on parks throughout town including Loop Canal Park on Pensylvania Avenue, The Nature Center, The park on the east side of Town Hall, the Children’s Public Playground, and the Bandstand area of the boardwalk. The balance of the boardwalk will have a ban only seasonally from mid-May to mid-September, which will correspond with the parking meter season. The beach will have ban during that same period of time, but there will be 7 or 8 designated smoking areas about 100 feet from entrances. So some parts of the ban will be seasonal and other parts will be year-round. The Town Solicitor will draw up the ordinance, and come back to the Council for a first and then a second reading a month later, followed by a vote. Assuming that the votes were as they were last night, it would then be passed and put in place by mid-May.
Health issues and the issues regarding secondhand smoke are what brought this to their attention, and that has been the predominant response from the public, according to Tony McClenny of the Bethany Beach Town Council. One argument against all this was–if there is a ban on these wide open areas, it would bring the smokers into more congested areas. There are other arguments against the ban as well, which has to do with enforcement.
Before they came to an agreement, the Council was split on the seasonal ban as well as the total ban and could not come to a consensus. It only took a couple of people to speak out for the Town Council to reconsider and then finally go to a vote. One resident stated this:
“I think the smoking on the beach is horrific! Cigar smokers should be banned and sent to Ocean View or wherever. It is disgusting!” She goes on to say, “I think it is incredible that in a place that considers itself a family resort, we can’t have 4 people on this Council that want to uphold a ban on smoking.”
Another resident said this:
“I am one who has to sit on the beach and suffer with smoke…and… you can’t easily move. I would much rather have that ban in place in the summer than not at all. Is it possible for you to reconsider as a compromise? That would be much preferrable to us voters and taxpayers.”
Council members in support of the ban also mentioned the kids that could be affected by it. A ban at least in the summer months when it is crowded is a wise decision. And it’s not like smokers wouldn’t be able to smoke at all. There will be 7 or 8 ‘designated’ smoking areas. I think this should make most people happy–at least on the beach.
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February 17th, 2008 at 8:29 am
As a resident of Ocean View, I am offended at that woman’s comment about cigar smokers being sent to Ocean View or wherever. What is that supposed to mean? Didn’t my tax dollars help pay for your million dollar beach replenishment? Let’s act like adult, please!
February 17th, 2008 at 7:20 pm
Cigarette smoke does seem to have a way of following non-smokers around and getting into their lungs. Beaches do get quite crowded and it isn’t fair to have to smell and breath smoke from people’s tobacco. As a former smoker who quit 32 years ago, I am now allergic to cigarette smoke, and I have friends who also became allergic after ceasing from their smoking habit. I regret the annoyance I probably caused in those days.
Britain is working hard to stop people from smoking, because education doesn’t seem to work. They are now considering a smoking license costing ten pounds (around $17) a year. The license is annual and the form is deliberately complicated to obtain a license which will have to have a photograph of the licensee on it. It isn’t so much a license to smoke, as a license to purchase tobacco. They believe that many will just give up the habit.
Perhaps mankind may even see a day when nobody in the world smokes, and the tobacco companies put their resources to better things to enhance the quality of life.
It isn’t just the air that we need to keep clean, but the beaches, too. Children dig up cigarette stubs left by selfish smokers, which are laden with filthy chemicals. So go for it, Bethany! You’ve got a lot of people behind you!
February 18th, 2008 at 10:35 am
I agree with John B.. I hope Rehoboth Beach wakes up and follows Bethany’s lead. I would love to be able to walk the boards and Avenue without the heavy clouds of smoke. Currently, the benches on both the boards and Avenue are loaded with smokers. I would love to walk the boards one summer evening and smell the salt air and french fries, without walking through clouds of smoke.
February 18th, 2008 at 9:24 pm
I’m sorry but I’ve walked the boards, smelled the fries (which, at times, can be a little much), the salt air, pizza and bars. I’m a smoker and I have to tell you it’s been a very long time since I’ve seen “clouds of smoke” anywhere, let alone having to walk through. Myself, I’m in the process of quitting smoking…my choice…but I hope with all my heart that when I do I become an NON-smoker, not an ANTI-smoker, begrudging another single person their rights. Look at it this way…do either of you drink at Whiskey Jack’s, Grotto’s, Victoria’s? Did you drive to get there to enjoy your pleasure and your walk? Good for you…so who is infringing on your right? From what I’ve seen at any of those venues during the summer months, you have less to worry about…healthwise…than I do. You could kill me in one fell swoop on Rte. 1 (or Rehoboth Avenue).
Smoking, drinking, over-eating ALL have their health effects so what about this…let’s just make all of them illegal, from purchase to usage.
February 19th, 2008 at 7:01 am
To answer your question, Nancy, I don’t drink in bars, anywhere, and I don’t begrudge those who do. A person standing next to me, drinking alcohol, isn’t going to affect me unless he gets drunk, which has a potential to cause problems for everyone in his vicinity. However, a smoker standing next to me does affect me inasmuch as the air that I breath has now become polluted. My clothes also become saturated with the smell of stale tobacco. The solution is this case is for me to vacate the premises but if I do that every time I come into contact with a smoker I will have few places to go.
You seem to be inferring that I am an anti-smoker. Not so! However, where second-hand smoke affects others including children, in public places, it ought not to be. It is uncivilized, unsociable and unhealthy. I choose to not smoke but there are some who dictate I WILL smoke when I am in their presence. Such people are infringing on my right and the rights of others to breath clean air.
As a former member of the Moose lodge, I was forced to quit for one reason: cigarette smoke! It made me too ill to drive home, as my wife will testify. I did enjoy socializing in that place but had to stop.
I commend you for quitting smoking. As you will probably find out like many of us who have long stopped smoking, it is a habit that the general public can well do without. It isn’t until we are free of the poisonous nicotine and the obnoxious smell, that we realize what we have put our bodies, and the bodies of others, through. Food tastes better, too!
To get back to the point of the article, though, I’m not suggesting that smoking be banned everywhere. Areas would be set aside to accommodate smokers. This would give non-smokers (the majority, I believe) the ability to enjoy the beach to their fullest, breathing the fresh air that God provided for a healthy life.
February 19th, 2008 at 8:35 am
Thank you Nancy! I wanted to comment yesterday but I had difficulty finding the words to express my objections to the comments on the blog.You hit the nail on the head. I quit smoking 31 years ago,cigarettes that is. I occasionally enjoy a cigar. I always try to be aware of others when I smoke. It appears I consider other people with more regard to their individual rights then many of the self rightous non-smokers.Curious as usual.
February 19th, 2008 at 10:13 am
John B, I appreciate your reasoned response but I see one flaw jumping right out at me…areas set aside to accomodate smokers. We’ve had that for how many years, perhaps not always ideally situated, but those were removed and I’d guarantee, in this day and age you set up specific areas and before you know it, non-smokers decide that’s where they want to go or be. It’s almost lemming-like except smokers aren’t throwing themselves off the cliffs, others are just too willing to push them. Years ago I was thinking that some enterprising person could set up a smoking-only airline but that thought was quickly followed by the realization it probably wouldn’t stand a chance. First time someone needed to be somewhere and it had the only seat available there’d be a law suit. Anti-smokers…and I do apologise if I unwittingly included you in this…do not want smokers anywhere for any reason and their justification is “Well, smoke is in the air, travels and affects me, anyway…not good enough…” The tackiest and most pitiful sight has got to be seeing huddles of smokers outside a place of work, restaurant or place of entertainment, rain or shine. We are not down and outs, alcoholics sharing one bottle and, while we may be drug addict of a sort, not illegal but no matter how you slice it, it’s how we look. Set side areas of the beach, or wherever, and I guarantee you it would be short lived because that’s where everyone else will, at some point, for some reason…if only to be a nit-picker…want to be and insist they go.
Weekend, I hear you…I’ve always been a considerate smoker and I find the majority of smokers are. As a smoker, I’ve never gone into a restaurant (where smoking was legal but seperate area), found there was no seating in the smoking section and insisted I be allowed to smoke in the non-smoking section. But I can’t tell you how many non-smokers have done this to the smoking section. I’ve seen it done in restaurants, on planes…you name it. I’ve had people make faces, pretend to cough, wave hands by their faces, make very rude comments…and have raised children to do likewise…when in a smoking area, or when I’ve selected a bench or spot away from everyone else and they decided they just HAD to walk through or by when they could have simply gone around. But no, they had to “make a statement”, rude as it was.
February 19th, 2008 at 2:13 pm
Forgot…John B., I was really taken aback when I read the UK is proposing a licence to smoke. We of the UK have done some stupid things but this is rabid. My sister…who still lives there…hasn’t mentioned it (maybe afraid I’d go off on a rant…lol) but I did find this today…
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/feb/18/guardiancolumnists
which I must admit I found funnily ominous. Still, the best part of the column (and, Weekend, I think you will enjoy and appreciate this as much as I!) was this said by C.S. Lewis:
“Once upon a time, in between scrawling allegorical fables about lions and wardrobes, CS Lewis said something prescient. “Of all tyrannies,” he wrote, “a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies.
The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”
Sorry to say that about sums up today’s society in a nutshell.
February 19th, 2008 at 3:34 pm
WOW!!! Wish I had said that. I heard a new slogan for Bethany on another radio station today. Went something like “If you are perfect,Welcome to Bethany Beach.” “Omnipotent moral busybodies”,…damn that’s good.Curious as usual.