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The Vancouver parks board is considering banning smoking on city beaches.
"Coastal Health has brought it to us, and all the conversations are fairly informal and more investigative at this point," said board chairwoman Korina Houghton.
"It's not of the highest priority, but it's on people's minds.
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Cherlene Mun says only diehard smokers will be upset if Vancouver beachgoers lose the right to light up.
Wayne Leidenfrost, The Province
"Certainly nothing would happen this year, because we're already well into the summer."
Among issues for the board are how to enforce a ban, and whether it would it cover all beaches, Houghton said.
The B.C. Lung Association would support a ban, said executive-director Scott McDonald, who noted that about 85 per cent of B.C.ers don't smoke.
"Second-hand smoke in any concentration is hazardous, even though people think they're out on a breezy beach," McDonald said.
"The other issue is the litter factor. People think they're sitting in a giant sand ashtray and they're flicking their butts wherever."
McDonald said some California beaches ban smoking and a ban here would be the next phase in "denormalizing" smoking.
"This is another step in providing smoke-free spaces for people. It's an incremental step toward making smoking no longer acceptable."
The B.C. Civil Liberties Association has concerns.
"When you have to balance the competing rights of two sets of people doing lawful activities in a public space, that balance is not reasonably drawn if you say that one set just can't engage in that lawful activity. It doesn't make sense," said association president Robert Holmes.
"The thrust of the provincial legislation and the bylaws to date has been to focus on enclosed spaces where people can't get away from others. In an open area, you can move if somebody comes within an unreasonably close space to you and starts smoking."
A smoking ban on beaches would be in opposition to the very point of public spaces, Holmes said.
"It's not meant to be a place just for the more puritanical among us to go and not drink, not smoke, not have dogs off of leashes and not engage in any activity that other people might find the slightest bit offensive," he said.
"If we start banning all of that so that only the prudes and the straight-laced are able to do what they want in the parks, then we'll have come to a rather sad state."
Many smokers would understand a beach ban, said 25-year-old Vancouverite Cherlene Mun as she enjoyed a cigarette near English Bay yesterday.
"For somebody who has to have that smoke, I think they would be upset," she said. "But my best friend doesn't smoke and I can be 10 feet away from her and she still smells it.
"I do understand where they're coming from. Vancouver is so health-driven."
jcouture@theprovince.com
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