(Image source from: North Carolina Health News)
New Jersey is yet again endeavoring to prohibit smoking on public beaches.
The State Assembly and Senate committees are scheduled to consider the state's latest bill on Monday that would ban smoking at public beaches excluding designated smoking areas comprising 15 per cent or less of the beach as well allowing to smoke in parking lots too.
Violators would be fined with $250 for first offence and $1,000 for a third offence.
The initiative has been taken by the State Department of Environmental Protection to provide assistance to communities within the limits of resources available to the department for this purpose.
Read: New Jersey Lawmakers to Ban Smoking at Public Beaches
Alike bills that were vetoed before it, this bill does not spell out those accountable for enforcing ban on sand.
"It's a hot summer day, the beach is jammed, someone lights a cigarette and then someone who's offended by it has to go look for a special police officer to make them put it out," Long Branch Mayor Adam Schneider said. "Those officers are stretched very thin between parking, traffic control and patrolling the beach, looking for drinking on the beach. Enforcement can be difficult."
In contrast, the bill goes into considerable detail about who would get the money from fine, depending on whether charges are brought by state or local health departments.
Around the nation, about 300 coastal communities have prohibited smoking on their beaches, according to American Nonsmokers Rights Foundation.
Some of the state's most popular beaches of Jersey shore have already prohibited smoking including Ocean City, Belmar, Spring Lake and Seaside Heights.
Umpteen environmental groups has support for bill.
"We shouldn't be turning our beaches into ashtrays or clouds of air pollution," said Jeff Tittel, director of the New Jersey Sierra Club. "Secondhand smoke can lead to health impacts, lung cancer, asthma and infections. Children are playing on the beach and they are breathing in secondhand smoke."
By Sowmya Sangam
