They’ve heard arguments on both sides of the issue for months, and after a well-attended public input session in November and equally lively discussion at their Jan. 15 workshop, the Bethany Beach Town Council appears prepared to take action on a proposed smoking ban.
Vice-Mayor Tony McClenny left no doubt Monday where he stands on the proposed ban on outdoor smoking in town’s most popular outdoor locations.
“I feel strongly about this issue. And the more I’ve thought about it, the more strongly I feel,” he said. “We are not doing this lightly. It is being done other places. And I’d like you to consider a ban in all the places suggested.”
Those places include the town’s boardwalk, bandstand area, beaches and downtown children’s park, as well as the new nature center on Route 26.
“It’s a shame the air is cleaner in a bar than on our boardwalk,” McClenny lamented of the current state of affairs, where smoking is banned statewide in bars, restaurants and other indoor workplaces, but where outdoor smoking has only been banned at a few select locations on private property, such as the state’s hospital campuses.
Bethany Beach would not be alone in instituting a beach-centered smoking ban, though, he emphasized. Smoking is already banned on many California beaches and has also been banned in recent years on some public beaches in Michigan, New Jersey and South Carolina, among others. Sarasota, Fla., banned smoking on its beaches as of Dec. 11, 2007. McClenny said Australia was also moving to ban smoking on its beaches.
The trend and the council’s consideration of a ban here has been supported by nationwide statistics and the response received from the public to date.
McClenny noted that of 145 e-mails he has received on the subject, only nine opposed a full ban. Some 122, on the other hand, favored smoking being banned in all the suggested locations. A round dozen favored some degree of ban but gave no consensus on which of the suggested locations they would want affected.
And those numbers don’t reflect dozens of individually signed form letters in support of a ban also received by the town in recent months, apparently through the coordination of an individual or group.
Opposition to ban voiced, enforcement considered
Some have opposed a ban, as was the case with the bulk of a small citizen contingent present at an August committee meeting on the subject and some of those who testified at the public forum in November.
Among them was former Planning Commissioner Phil Boesch, who challenged the proposed ban in November as a restriction on personal freedoms. He also sounded a note of skepticism on the health impacts of second-hand smoke on Monday.
“They haven’t even proven that second-hand smoke is dangerous,” he said, still vehemently opposed to a ban and strongly doubtful about smoking’s reported negative health impacts on others when it is done outdoors.
“We need to do this for our future generations and their health in our town,” McClenny countered to his fellow council members, noting scientific evidence of health impacts to non-smokers previously cited in discussion of the ban.
Some council members took a more centrist position on the issue, with Council Member Joseph T. “Joe” Healy suggesting the council might consider a “voluntary” ban supported by “no-smoking” signs but without an ordinance to require enforcement.
“How are we going to enforce this?” he asked. “I don’t want enforcement police walking up and telling people they can’t smoke.” Healy suggested a full ban could be enacted if a voluntary one was tried first and didn’t work.
“If we voluntary asked for them not to smoke, it would probably result in 95 percent compliance, with no enforcement difficulties,” he suggested.
Mayor Carol Olmstead disagreed, saying she felt the only way to institute any sort of ban was to enact an ordinance so that the ban could be enforced. She pointed to existing restrictions on dogs in the town, requiring owners to keep them leashed and off the beach and boardwalk during the summer.
“If it’s voluntary, it’s not a ban,” she said. “If it’s a ban, it’s not voluntary.”
Olmstead said she wondered why enforcement was even an issue for debate. “If some people are bothered (by smoking), the rules can be enforced.”
Council Member Jerry Dorfman emphasized that he doesn’t want lifeguards tasked with enforcing a ban, which the reformed smoker said he does support. Instead, Dorfman said he wants to see signs with prominent and significant fines listed, and the involvement of the town’s staff of seasonal police officers to deal with smokers who break the law during the densely populated summer period.
“People on the beach will advise others of the rule,” McClenny said, following along with the experience reported by many of the municipalities that have already banned smoking on their beaches with few enforcement problems. He said enforcement by police would likely only be necessary “if someone is really obnoxious.”
McClenny sided against large fines and prominent postings of such, saying he wanted the town to avoid being “negative, negative, negative.”
Parsons proposes compromise option
Parsons, who has been largely non-committal on the issue, took a key position during the discussion, pointing out that few people had opposed the idea of banning smoking around the densely populated bandstand, while there had been more opposition to banning smoking on the beach itself.
With designated smoking areas and appropriate disposal options, Parsons said, the town could reduce litter – one of the stated goals of the proposed ban. He questioned whether assertions that seagulls eat discarded cigarette butts are true, but that aside, Parsons said he’d even like one of the penalties for defying a ban to be community service in the form of picking up cigarette butts.
Parsons questioned whether even an ordinance and signs notifying the public about a ban could be effective. He pointed to existing restrictions on the consumption of alcoholic beverages in public and on the beach, which he said many people ignore, implying enforcement would be key in a ban’s effectiveness.
“Drinking isn’t harmful to others,” McClenny countered.
Moreover, McClenny said, the body of evidence on the negative health impacts of smoke on smoker and non-smokers was trending toward ever-widening public bans.
“Even though it hasn’t been banned, it will be one day,” he predicted.
But Parsons, himself a smoker, said efforts to flat-out ban smoking were contrary to human nature.
“A ban suggests the people implementing it don’t know much about addictive behavior,” he said.
Favoring a middle ground, Parsons said, “There’s a way you can accomplish a lot of good – 95 percent of your objective.” He said even a partial ban would serve to put pressure on those who continue to smoke.
Planning Commissioner Kathleen Mink said she also supported a middle ground on the issue, wherein smoking would be banned on the boardwalk, at the bandstand and in the town’s park areas.
“But we have a big, new beach,” she said. “It should provide more opportunity for people to get away (from smokers). Let’s see what the new beach does for us.”
Olmstead said she was inclined to agree on that point.
Consensus builds on middle ground
McClenny said he was still firmly in favor of a full ban. “I’d like a total ban,” he said. “That’s what 90 percent of the people who responded said they wanted.”
“Some of them are not from Bethany Beach,” Parsons said, admitting he was less inclined to listen to non-residents who had supported a ban – something for which McClenny had taken the council to task earlier in the meeting.
“A lot of them are not from Bethany Beach,” McClenny conceded. “But a lot of them vacation in Bethany Beach.”
Town Manager Cliff Graviet pointed out to the council that the issue had strayed from the original intent of the proposal — smoking on the beach — to apparently be focused, in the council members’ minds, on the boardwalk, bandstand and parks.
Olmstead supported that view by suggesting that perhaps the town should consider creating a few designated smoking areas on the beach.
“It is irritating to some people,” Parsons agreed about the overall issue. “But I want the option of having the offender move and not have those people move.”
“Just don’t make me walk past them, or through them,” McClenny said.
Parsons suggested designated smoking areas be created at the front foot of the new dune, at locations between dune crossings and walkways, so that people crossing onto the beach would be less likely to be impacted by the smokers and smokers could light up without leaving the beach entirely, with appropriate containers in which to discard their butts.
McClenny said the notion of designated smoking areas was the only compromise suggestion made that he felt made sense, though he still favored a total ban and said he planned to call for one.
Council Member Tracy Mulligan, though, said he was not entirely comfortable with instituting a full ban, noting that many who spoke in support of some form of ban had wanted a ban in one place but not others. He further said he was concerned by the fact that his own feelings on the issue didn’t fully mesh with McClenny’s and said he needed further time for consideration.
He should have until at least February’s town council meeting, at which McClenny said he plans to make that motion for the council to adopt an ordinance banning smoking on the beach and boardwalk, at the town park and nature center, and in the ocean waters adjacent to the beach.
Whether the council will vote to institute such a ban or instead favor a compromise position, as suggested by Tuesday’s moderate consensus, won’t be revealed until that February meeting.