Enviro Bills in Committee Monday: Shore Master Plan and Banning Smoking

The following bills are up in the Assembly Tourism, Gaming and the Arts Committee:

Prohibits Smoking at Beaches A4021 (Mazzeo) revises the “New Jersey Smoke-Free Air Act” to prohibit smoking at public beaches.

“We shouldn’t be turning our beaches into ashtrays or clouds of air pollution. 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. Cigarettes also present environmental and safety problems, especially with the potential for boardwalk fires. It’s imperative that we ban smoking on beaches to protect residents and tourists,” said Jeff Tittel, Director of the New Jersey Sierra Club.

Prohibits Smoking on Beaches and Parks A3798 (Calabrese) revises “New Jersey Smoke-Free Air Act” to prohibit smoking at public beaches and parks.

Prohibits Smoking A1703 (Vainieri Huttle) prohibits smoking at public parks and beaches. This would apply to any State park or forest, county or municipal park, or State, county, or municipal beach.

“Cigarettes have caused forest fires in the past and by allowing smoking in our parks we are putting them at risk for destruction. They could damage picnic areas or historic buildings. They could also set areas of beaches on fire, including picnic tables or boardwalks. The Jersey shore has had enough damage, we don’t need the added risk of a cigarette burning boardwalks down,” said Jeff Tittel. “We shouldn’t be turning our beaches into ash trays and letting people step on cigarettes in the sand.”

Smoking is not only an environmental issue, but a health issue as well. Even when you set aside a smoking area on the beach it affects the people next to it and affects other people. People enjoying a day on the beach or at the park have to deal with second hand smoke. Towns have already put in place laws and ordinances dealing with smoking including Seaside Park which smoking is banned on all beaches and boardwalks. Long Branch and Sunset Beach in Cape May County are also smoke free. Smoking is banned on the boardwalk in Belmar, and on sections of its beaches. A stateside ban will benefit our environment, tourism, and public health.

“Having smoke free beaches and parks would encourage tourism, while protecting both our health and the environment. Cigarettes are a major source of litter and pollution, while also being a threat to public safety. A complete ban will not only benefit public health, but our environment. We are spending all this money rebuilding our beaches and now we should not turn them into ashtrays,” said Jeff Tittel.

The following bill is up in the Assembly Appropriations Committee:

Shore Protection Master Plan A1093 (Downey) requires DEP to update Shore Protection Master Plan. As written, the department has 2 years to develop an updated Master Plan once this bill is signed. The plan includes monitoring shore and beach protection programs as well as evaluating land use management alternatives, including land acquisition and other risk reduction actions.

“Updating the Shore Protection Master Plan is long overdue. We need to make some serious updates to modernize the plan and fully account for climate change, sea level rise, and storm surges. . The DEP needs to change all their rules to reflect this plan and the Legislature needs to pass bills to help including closing CAFRA loopholes and creating a Coastal Commission. During Hurricane Sandy, we lost $2 million worth of sand. Without a comprehensive plan with buyouts and raising homes, the millions of dollars spent on beach replenishment will be washed out to sea. We should be planning ways to relocate, buy-out, mitigate or even create structural solutions to these problems,” said Jeff Tittel, Director of the New Jersey Sierra Club. “We have a crisis on our shores and we need to quickly because a plan without implementation is a hallucination.”