Big Beach Butts!
No Smoking at the Beach
I'll admit upfront that I have a clear bias against smoking. I find it an terrible habit that, especially as fewer and fewer people do it (the article mentions only 17% of Californians smoke) becomes harder and harder to tolerate with regard to the people who do smoke.
However regardless of whether I can tolerate the actual habit, the trash related to it has always bothered me even more. The little butts that litter the ground are unsightly, and gross. I remember when I visited New York City, I found it a truly beautiful place, but just couldn't stand the huge number of butts from the large number of smokers there. (social smokers seems to be much more of an East Coast thing especially)
Now this article mentions this about the beach clean ups...
Do you think it fair or right that they ban smoking at public beaches? It seems fair to me since it appears that 60% of the trash is being generated by the actions of only 17% of the people. It also mentions the whole non-biodegradeable nature of the butts and the large number as a result.
Are the smoking nazi's (myself likely included in that remark) taking away basic freedoms? Is the majority running over the minority? Is this a personal freedom issue being disguised as a health/environmental issue to gain control over it? (ala suing fast food)
Thoughts?
Nick
I'll admit upfront that I have a clear bias against smoking. I find it an terrible habit that, especially as fewer and fewer people do it (the article mentions only 17% of Californians smoke) becomes harder and harder to tolerate with regard to the people who do smoke.
However regardless of whether I can tolerate the actual habit, the trash related to it has always bothered me even more. The little butts that litter the ground are unsightly, and gross. I remember when I visited New York City, I found it a truly beautiful place, but just couldn't stand the huge number of butts from the large number of smokers there. (social smokers seems to be much more of an East Coast thing especially)
Now this article mentions this about the beach clean ups...
Quote:
After a routine beach cleanup produced 6,300 butts in one hour at the 1.5-mile-long Solana Beach, the group took a tub of cigarette refuse to city hall. They filmed interviews of residents, 91 percent of whom approved the ban. Partnering with the American Heart Association and the Surfrider's Foundation, they barraged city hall with testimonies and requests for action.
Months later, a more formal Solana Beach cleanup event still garnered 230 pounds of refuse, 60 percent of which consisted of wet cigarette butts. It was a wake-up call for the tiny beachfront town from both quality-of-life and legal standpoints. "We are required by federal and state laws to keep water and beaches clean, so this really got the attention of everyone in government," says Matt Rodriguez, assistant city manager at Solana Beach. Cigarette butts do not biodegrade, and they contain 200 known poisons, 63 of which are shown to cause cancer. The city council passed the ban unanimously and has reported no formal resistance or complaints since.
After a routine beach cleanup produced 6,300 butts in one hour at the 1.5-mile-long Solana Beach, the group took a tub of cigarette refuse to city hall. They filmed interviews of residents, 91 percent of whom approved the ban. Partnering with the American Heart Association and the Surfrider's Foundation, they barraged city hall with testimonies and requests for action.
Months later, a more formal Solana Beach cleanup event still garnered 230 pounds of refuse, 60 percent of which consisted of wet cigarette butts. It was a wake-up call for the tiny beachfront town from both quality-of-life and legal standpoints. "We are required by federal and state laws to keep water and beaches clean, so this really got the attention of everyone in government," says Matt Rodriguez, assistant city manager at Solana Beach. Cigarette butts do not biodegrade, and they contain 200 known poisons, 63 of which are shown to cause cancer. The city council passed the ban unanimously and has reported no formal resistance or complaints since.
Do you think it fair or right that they ban smoking at public beaches? It seems fair to me since it appears that 60% of the trash is being generated by the actions of only 17% of the people. It also mentions the whole non-biodegradeable nature of the butts and the large number as a result.
Are the smoking nazi's (myself likely included in that remark) taking away basic freedoms? Is the majority running over the minority? Is this a personal freedom issue being disguised as a health/environmental issue to gain control over it? (ala suing fast food)
Thoughts?
Nick
Comments
I remember seeing these two redneck chics driving along a few years ago... we're on a four lane highway with stop lights. They pull up to the light, open their window and just drop a huge bag of McDonald's refuse onto the road. Friggin scumbags, these people are.
woman in front of me dumped her ashtray of butts right out her window! It's
almost as bad as dog owners that won't pick up their dog's crap. I live in an
apartment building that my family owns & I maintain. During the spring &
summer I will catch a dog owner at least twice a month when I come home
at night.
That's their thing, they will do it in the cover of darkness to reduce their
chances of getting caught. I caught one woman dead to rights & she
completely denied it even while the dog was still crapping! I guess her
reasoning is that if she is not looking at her dog, then it didn't happen.
(Sorry about going off in a different tanget but man does that piss me off!)
Seriously, I think it's GREAT. When I see some douchebag dropping a butt I feel like ramming it down their throat. The fine for disobeying this should be like $500.
In most places, littering is a fine.
Tossing out *burning* refuse is a *huge* fine, like 1k$ where I come from. (Eastern WA state - very dry, high risk of fires.)
So I say slap them with the current laws. You toss down a butt, you get a littering fine. Period. You toss down a *smoldering* butt, you can kiss your $ goodbye... which is as it should be. This isn't 'targeting' smokers (the poor, poor dears), but treating them *equally under the law*, which, last I heard, was the big beef about banning smoking. "We're getting treated differently!" Well, now you're not.
Can you imagine the uproar though? Sad that most smokers would cringe at tossing an apple core out the window, but a lit butt they've got zero problem with. Totally asinine, in my opinion.
But I'm a non-smoker, so that's not worth much, of course.
Obviously people can't tell the difference between a bowl-sized 'official' sand-filled ashtray and a beach-sized one.
the laws necessary are already in place to put and end to people throwing away butts. just enforce those laws.
hell, police precincts could make a killing the first few months they enforced this rule. eventually i bet it would stick that this is not going to be tolerated.
smoking should be banned on beaches until people can learn to discard their smokes in the trash, but that will never happen because people only think about themselves in general
do people think theirs butts are biodegradable? i'm confused and appalled how shelfish people are. from my experience smokers are selfish
the other think is, i experimented with smoking as a youth, i didn't get addicted. i sometimes think that that is a cop out saying it's addictive
can you tell i'm anti-smoking?
Everytime someone gets a bee up their butt in this country, they want to make ANOTHER law without checking to see if maybe, just *MAYBE* it's already covered, and they just need to *enforce* them?
Every time we add another law to the books, we lock ourselves further into a legal system that is at the mercy of the legislature and the lawyers, and move further away from a government by, for, and of the people.
Enforce littering laws. Period. At *most* clarify the littering laws to include cigarette butts explicitly. But a *new law*? Not needed.
Originally posted by Kickaha
The point is that there's no *need* to ban smoking on the beach to help prevent the butt litter...
Note context.
Banning smoking for other reasons is entirely different, and not the topic originally posted at the beginning of this thread.
As long as we are on the topic of smokers, nothing pisses me off more than smokers who flick out their butts out the damn car, which causes them to fly back ending up on the hood of my car, fuxing up my new wax job. Grrr
Originally posted by trumptman
Do you think it fair or right that they ban smoking at public beaches? It seems fair to me since it appears that 60% of the trash is being generated by the actions of only 17% of the people. It also mentions the whole non-biodegradeable nature of the butts and the large number as a result.
Thoughts?
Nick
Well, being a hardcore smoker I don't think it's fair to just completely ban smoking at the beaches...but I'd be all for a hefty fine for the dumbasses that litter the beach with their dead butts.
Smoke a cig....tear off the end....put the butt in you pack to dispose of later.
How hard is that?
The truly sad thing is that when most people (other smokers) see me do this (ie: everywhere outside) they say "What are you doing? Just toss it". Again, education is key. Not Draconian laws or MABOB (Mothers Against Butts On Beach).