Banning Butts on Beaches? Proposed "no smoking" law for all public beaches

[KBCraig]

http://www.unionleader.com/article.aspx?articleId=4666f58a-036d-487b-bd4d-fde7ec30159e

Beach butts banned? No smoking for the tanned.

The state of New Hampshire, which operates multiple skin-cancer factories -- otherwise known as public beaches -- might soon ban smoking on those beaches, says the sponsor of a bill to do so, "for people's health."

Rep. Judith Day, D-North Hampton, was inspired by Maine, which last year banned smoking on its public beaches. The sponsor of that bill, also a Democrat, told The Associated Press that his inspiration came after a mother at one Maine beach "realized that her daughter's cheeks looked like a chipmunk's cheeks, just as full and distended as you could get them. When she examined the reason for that, her little girl's mouth was plum full of cigarette butts that she'd picked up on the beach from people smoking and discarding."

Follow the chain reaction: A toddler with a taste for tobacco goes unsupervised long enough to stuff not one but numerous cigarette butts into her mouth, the mother blames smokers, the state bans smoking on beaches, the neighboring state considers following suit.

What if the tyke had a taste for seagull droppings instead?

Rep. Day says she wants to protect the health of beachgoers, whom she apparently believes are at great risk of getting lung cancer by inhaling second-hand smoke carried to their nostrils on ocean breezes swift enough to sail ships.

Does she consider periodic puffs of rapidly moving tobacco smoke a greater health threat at the beach than the daylong bombardment of ultraviolet rays upon beachgoers' exposed skin? Is she aware that skin cancer is the most common form of cancer in the United States?

In this past legislative session, Rep. Day sponsored a bill to ban smoking within 25 feet of playgrounds. It was voted inexpedient to legislate. This one should see the same end.

[Sovereign Curtis]

Thats it! Time for some tobacco civ dis...

I just got my first meershaum (sp?) pipe! Maybe I'll go smoke in the State house.

[MTPorcupine3]

All laws aside, I do wish that smokers would stop using the entire world for their ash tray.

[Sam A. Robrin]

I wish legislators would stop using the entire citizenry for theirs . . .

[thinkliberty]

What?! No butts at the beach?!

[Fluff and Stuff]

Thats it! Time for some tobacco civ dis...

I just got my first meershaum (sp?) pipe! Maybe I'll go smoke in the State house.

Um, you can smoke in the state house.  Well, not you but them. 

Honestly, if the smokers weren't so inconsiderate by throwing butts on the beach instead of doing the right thing and putting them in the trash, this bill wouldn't have come up.  I'm not blaming smokers, but clearly there are rude people on both sides of this issue.

[K. Darien Freeheart]

When is this bill being heard?

Honestly, if the smokers weren't so inconsiderate by throwing butts on the beach instead of doing the right thing and putting them in the trash, this bill wouldn't have come up.  I'm not blaming smokers, but clearly there are rude people on both sides of this issue.

I say this as a smoker... I agree. Though, there's the very large issue here of public property, I agree.

Perhaps we could do a "Clean Up The Beach" party, and then protest this? Though... beach cleanup might be hard. I hear cigarette butts like hiding in snow.

[Lloyd Danforth]

Reminds me of a warm Summer afternoon on a Connecticut beach in 1953 or 4 when my younger sister approached our blanket with a pail of stuff she had collected including an old condom.