No Smoking on Belmar Beaches?

This Saturday, February 21, Belmar residents and beach patrons are encouraged to attend a special meeting to discuss a proposed ban on smoking on the beach and boardwalk.

Currently, there are three options up for discussion:

• Leaving the borough’s designated smoking areas on the beach and boardwalk as they stand today
  
• Creating smoke-free beaches in the borough
  
• Banning smoking from all Belmar beaches and the boardwalk.

According to Councilwoman Meredith Brennan, smoking areas, allowing for a 50-foot smoking radius, are currently designated every 400 feet on Belmar beaches.

Personally I prefer to spend a smoke-free day at the beach, however, if there are designated smoking areas - and smokers adhere to these limits - I'm fine with sharing the beach.

I hope all of you smokers out there can at least do one thing - take your butts of the beach with the rest of the day's trash. Cigarette butts are litter and are dangerous to sea animals who accidentally ingest them.