Posted on 09/26/2006 8:32:36 AM PDT by ConservativeStatement
Standing strapped to a boogie board as his children surfed the waves of the Pacific Ocean, Cocoa Beach Mayor Skip Beeler kept looking down at the cool California summer sand sifting between his toes.
Something wasn't right.
"I started thinking this was so clean, I haven't seen any cigarette butts," Beeler said. "Then I thought if it works there, it can work here."
Beeler's efforts to emulate California's example by banning smoking on the beach in his popular seaside town and a recent suggestion by Delray Beach Mayor Jeff Perlman to separate smokers and non-smokers on that city's beach have garnered statewide headlines, raised plenty of legal questions and inspired others to action.
The Sand Sifters, a group of about 350 volunteers who pick up beach debris in the Boynton Beach and Ocean Ridge areas, asked Boynton Beach's Recreation and Parks Advisory Board on Monday night to recommend a smoking ban at the city's Oceanfront Park.
The panel unanimously recommended that city staff pursue an agreement with Ocean Ridge to enforce the litter law at the park and also asked the city attorney to study whether a smoking ban could be implemented and how it could be enforced.
(Excerpt) Read more at palmbeachpost.com ...
Smokers believe the world is their ashtray.
Ban them also.
Or concentration camp.
Okay, I'm all for freedom and libertarian ideals, but to be honest I just don't mind banning the smoking for one reason: smokers throw butts wherever they want. I have lost count of the number of idiots smoking butts that toss them out of windows, toss them on the ground, toss them in dry, brittle, crispy weeds, toss them into large open cans of gasoline, toss them next to leaking propane tankers (okay maybe not the last two). An area can be absolutely absent from every type of trash BUT cigarette butts. The beach is not an ashtray, and that's what I've seen smokers treat it as.
I believe smokers should be able to smoke outside wherever they want,,,,, but next time I see a smoker flick his butt on the ground I will be tempted to pick it up and put it out on their forhead.
It hurts my eyes when I see ugly and moronic tatoos.
Let's make tatooed knuckleheads stay down by the garbage cans.
YES. I could care less if someone chooses to slowly off themselves with cigarettes, it's a free country. I get waaaaaay angered over the notion of it being acceptable to simply toss butts all over the place.
"Yo, dude! You know what would be awesome? If we, like, banned smokers! Wouldn't that be kewl?"
Fine the hell out of them for littering, this would bring revenue and clean up the beach. Isn't it always about money? What's a big lib from Palm Beach County thinking anyway?
You hit the nail square on the head.
Well, you know, if you smoke, you go to Hell when you die. :)
And anti-smokers don't care about health.
My, what a sweeping statement you've made.
Enforce the litter laws. That's all that needs to be done.
This being Autumn, my daily drive home ends after dark ... the world's smokers are kind enough to give me a free fireworks show along the highway. (barf) There will be screeching and hollering from the usual suspects, of course, further highlighting the fact that rude, boorish, slovenly smokers are smokers' worst enemies. Sort of reminds me (in a much milder way) of a certain other group that's been in the news lately ...
Agreed.
I don't mind the smoke at the beach too much. It's the cigarette butts laying everywhere that annoy me.
I'm not anti-smoker. Do as you please. Just pick up your trash.
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