For a state that relies heavily on shore tourism to power its economy, there sure are a lot of things you can’t do here.
NJ Considers Restrictions on Shore Smoking
Jul 27, 2014
By Wayne Parry
“It makes me gag,” the Wall Township resident said from a sand chair on the Manasquan beach last week. “Even if they’re not right on top of you, the wind still carries it into your face.”
But Kristen Debell of Wayne says there’s plenty of room for smokers on the sand.
“I’m mindful of who I’m around, but it gets burdensome to have to walk to a special section, especially when you have kids,” she said. “It’s nuts to ban smoking outside. Where do you draw the line?”
New Jersey is grappling with that very question, trying to determine whether smoking should be allowed on public beaches. The state legislature had considered a total ban on smoking at all public beaches in New Jersey but eventually added a provision allowing towns to set aside 15 percent of their beaches as smoking areas.
That has left the debate smoldering as Gov. Chris Christie ponders whether to sign the bill.
Several shore towns have already completely banned smoking–something the bill permits. Belmar, Seaside Heights, Long Branch, Ocean Grove and Spring Lake are among those with bans. In Cape May County, Sunset Beach in Lower Township and Upper Township prohibit smoking.
Several boardwalks also ban smoking, including Ocean City, Belmar, Spring Lake, Seaside Heights and part of Seaside Park.
Around the country, more than 200 coastal communities have enacted total smoking bans on their sands, with many more passing partial bans, according to the American Nonsmokers’ Rights Foundation. These include county-run beaches in Los Angeles, New York and Hawaii, state beaches in Maine and some local beaches in California, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, North and South Carolina and Rhode Island, among others.
Florida, however, has a law preventing local towns from banning smoking on their beaches. A move to repeal it fizzled last year.
New Jersey’s law is designed to reduce exposure to secondhand smoke, litter and fire risks. Violators would be fined at least $250 for a first offense, increasing to up to $1,000 for repeated violations.
The bill doesn’t clearly spell out who would enforce the law. It says: “The person having control of a … public park or beach shall order any person smoking in violation of this act to comply with the provisions of this act.” Left unclear is whether the bill expects lifeguards, police officers or someone else to enforce the law.
It would take effect 180 days after the bill is signed, meaning it would not apply to this summer.
Karen Blumenfeld, executive director of Global Advisors on Smokefree Policy, said almost half of New Jersey’s municipalities restrict smoking in outdoor recreational areas.
“With 85 percent of adults in New Jersey not smoking, and 70 percent of those who smoke want to quit, it’s common sense to have 100 percent smoke-free beaches,” she said.
Anna Ksenzenko, of Princeton, a former smoker, called for a common-sense solution that respects the rights of everyone.
“It’s not great for you, but it’s not a crime,” she said. “It’s not pleasant to be around cigarette smoke on the beach, but a person shouldn’t feel excluded from society if they smoke.”
New rules leave some fuming, citing civil rights infringement
Mar. 15, 2014
By Dan Radel
Belmar is on its way to becoming the next Jersey Shore town to ban smoking on its beaches, but one group says the anti-smoking movement has gone so far that government is re-engineering society to eliminate smoker freedoms.
It may not be too long before the anti-smoking ban is statewide. A bill is pending in the Legislature that will stamp out smoking on all public beaches and parks in the state, in what one assemblywoman called an effort “to change the culture of the next generation.”
“It’s the right thing to do. It’s clearly in the public interest to expand these laws,” said Assemblywoman Valerie Vainieri Huttle, D-Bergen, the primary sponsor of the bill, which is up for a vote in the Assembly on Thursday.
Should smoking be banned at beaches and parks? Express your opinion in our pro/con poll.
At least 18 beaches in the state banned smoking as of 2011, the latest year for which figures are available, but one group sees the prohibition as social engineering and unnecessary government intrusion on civil rights.
“They’re attempting to de-normalize smoking,” said Michael J. McFadden, the Mid-Atlantic Regional Director for Citizens Freedom Alliance, a smoker’s rights group. “Now, if you want to smoke, they’re going to make it so difficult for you that you have to go hide behind a Dumpster.”
Jersey beach rules: You might not dig ’em
May 25, 2007 ?
SURF CITY, N.J.? — Welcome to the Jersey Shore! Have a great time, but please don’t dig too deeply in the sand in Surf City (you could get blown up), feed the seagulls in Ocean City (you could catch a disease), or draw dirty pictures in the sand in Belmar (it’s rude).
If you have tummy trouble, don’t even think of going to Sea Bright, and if you come to Spring Lake, leave your spear gun at home. Other beaches won’t let you eat, pick flowers, fly a kite, gamble or ride a camel.
For a state that relies heavily on shore tourism to power its economy, there sure are a lot of things you can’t do here.
“I used to take pictures of signs at the entrance to beaches that had long lists of all the things you couldn’t do,” said Dery Bennett, head of the American Littoral Society’s Sandy Hook chapter. “There was one with a big word ‘NO’ in red letters at the top, and all these things listed underneath it, and at the bottom, someone put tape on it and wrote in “fun allowed.”
Many of the beach towns on Long Beach Island, one of New Jersey’s most popular summer vacation spots, have laws prohibiting people from digging deeper than 12 inches in the sand. They stem from an accident a few years ago in which a teenager died when a deep hole he was digging collapsed in on him.
But this year, the prohibition is for a different reason: more than 1,000 pieces of unexploded World War I-era military munitions that were unwittingly pumped ashore during a winter beach replenishment project decades after being dumped at sea. Authorities say they’ve removed everything they could, but can’t guarantee more munitions don’t remain hidden.
“How can you tell a kid not to dig in the sand?” asked Faith O’Dell, who lives near the beach in Surf City, where most of the old fuses and such were found. “It’s their nature; it’s what kids do. And when your kid says, `Why, Mommy, why can’t I dig in the sand,’ what do you tell them, that they could blow themselves up?”
Ocean City passed a law in January prohibiting the feeding of seagulls from beaches or any other public property. Officials say they acted to prevent bird droppings from contaminating local waterways and spreading disease, but also note that the avian scavengers have just gotten too brazen in recent years.
Most of the beach laws in New Jersey involve things that most people would agree make sense, such as banning glass containers, fires, pets and nudity from the beach. Others take things a step further.
Belmar, for example, prohibits smoking, gambling, cursing, or changing clothes on its popular beach.
It also says no one may “model, draw or depict any obscene or rude figures upon the beachfront.”
“There are a lot of crazy rules on the beachfront,” Mayor Ken Pringle said. “I’ve been on the job 17 years and I can’t ever recall getting a complaint about that. Mostly, it’s just someone’s Frisbee going where it’s not supposed to.”
In Wildwood, don’t even think about riding a camel on the beach. That prohibition came about because the city’s beaches are very wide, and a vendor in 2000 proposed charging people a few dollars to ride on a camel’s back for the quarter-to-half mile it takes to get from the boardwalk to the water’s edge.
“We said no,” said Mayor Ernie Troiano. “Our beaches are as wide as a desert, but you won’t find any camels on our sand.”
And there’s more you can’t do in Wildwood: You also cannot stand under the boardwalk and look up through slits between the boards when people are walking above your head.
Meanwhile in Sea Bright, the borough appears to be very interested in your innards. A sign posted at the entrance to the beach commands, “Do not enter the water if you are experiencing or recovering from diarrhea, or have had any signs of symptoms of a gastrointestinal disease in the past seven days.”
Bill Mack, the borough’s water safety director, acknowledges that’s something his badge checkers and lifeguards aren’t likely to keep tabs on.
“My primary concern is to keep people from drowning,” he said.
Actually, officials in many New Jersey coastal towns admit that parts of their beach laws are rarely, if ever, invoked. Take Long Branch’s prohibition on parking a baby carriage on the sand within 15 feet of a beach entrance.
“I can’t fathom what the thought process was behind that one,” said Mayor Adam Schneider, who did not know the law existed until a reporter questioned him on it. “We can do a pretty good job of looking foolish when we enforce `real’ ordinances, let alone something like this. I just hope I don’t get embarrassed and find out I voted for it in the past.”
Elsewhere on the Jersey shore, it is illegal to possess a spear gun on the beach in Spring Lake. In Brigantine, you can’t impersonate a member of the beach patrol, or “revel, disport or behave in an annoying, boisterous manner, emitting loud cries.”
Point Pleasant Beach takes the noise ban a step further, prohibiting “any loud noise, sound or music to the annoyance of other persons.”
Many Jersey municipalities prohibit people from eating on the beach. A Bay Head official told New Jersey Monthly magazine last summer he did not want to sit near someone eating a submarine sandwich on the beach.
“There’s a smell,” he said.
