South Bethany may be last town to ban beach smoking
An ordinance being considered by the South Bethany Town Council would ban smoking on the town’s public beach.
If passed in April, the town would be the last on the Delmarva coast to enact one.
The ordinance will get a second reading March 10.
The language of the ordinance is similar to that used in other beach smoking bans and prohibits tobacco, vapor and marijuana use on the beach and in beach access areas. Unique to South Bethany, the ban would be in force year-round, and there would be no designated smoking areas.
Although the council has been discussing a ban for several years, no activity resulted from these discussions until recently.
“There was never a sense of urgency because we never really had any complaints,” Mayor Pat Voveris said.
Voveris said that now is the right time to tackle the ban, during the time when part-time residents are returning to the area. She considers the ban a “hot topic issue” and wanted as many residents as possible to have the opportunity to be present at the draft readings before the tourism season begins anew.
Council member Frank Weisgerber said that the council regularly sends out a feedback survey to all of the town’s 1,400 property owners. Results indicated 72 percent of residents favor a smoking ban on the beach.
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“One of the questions (this year) was about smoking, and the majority of our property owners came back and said, ‘We support non-smoking,’ ” Weisgerber said.
Weisgerber said those opposed recognized that smoking is unhealthy, but they resent government telling them what to do.
Weisgerber became the ordinance’s sponsor for two reasons. One stems from personal loss.
“Secondhand smoking is a proven carcinogen that costs lives. I lost my mom and my mother-in-law; neither of them were smokers, both died of lung cancer,” Weisgerber said.
He also said many residents think of the town as a large neighborhood, and neighbors should respect each other.
“If somebody wants to smoke and understands what they’re doing to themselves, that’s fine, but don’t sit there on the beach and chain smoke and have that blow down in my space,” he said. “So if I should ask you not to smoke near me, you should do that. But we all know that’s not the way it works.”
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Toni Menchetti, a longtime smoker who was visiting relatives in the Bethany Beach area, said she is against smoking bans in general.
“It’s my right to (smoke) if I choose to do that to my body,” she said. “It’s ridiculous. ... I could see it maybe indoors, but it’s out in the open.”
Menchetti said if the ordinance is passed, smoking and nonsmoking areas should be designated. The ordinances passed in other beach towns do designate the size and location of areas reserved for smoking.
The sense that South Bethany was the last beach town to not have a smoking ban was a factor in considering the ordinance, Weisgerber said.
“First Bethany went to no smoking, then Fenwick, Dewey, Rehoboth, Lewes, and then Ocean City was the big one,” Weisgerber said. “And they banned it not only on their beaches but on their boardwalks, so how is it that little South Bethany cannot ban smoking on the beaches? So I brought it forward.”