JACKSONVILLE, Fla – After years of failed attempts, Florida lawmakers are the closest they’ve been to passing a ban on smoking at beaches and parks.
Almost every year, for the past 30 years, cigarette butts have been the No. 1 piece of litter found on beaches around the world. Food wrappers have surged ahead recently, but cigarette butts are still a close second and lawmakers hope to drive them even lower down the list.
Under the legislation, Florida cities and counties would be able to ban smoking at public beaches and parks they own.
Unfiltered cigars would be an exception.
That’s because filters contain plastic -- and that’s the type of pollution lawmakers are hoping to address.
An analysis of this bill says of the estimated 6 trillion cigarette smokes every year around the world, up to two-thirds of these cigarette butts are discarded as litter. The butts also contain hazardous substances that can be toxic to animals.
If approved, it would impact Florida’s 67 county park systems and more than 400 city park systems.
Rep. Thad Altman, an Indialantic Republican who has co-sponsored the bill, said it builds on a 2002 constitutional amendment that prohibited smoking in restaurants and at other indoor workplaces.
“What we found is that at a lot of our public parks or beaches, you’d go to a Little League game, you’d see smoke going into the dugout around the kids,” Altman said. “There was no way of enforcing that.”
Under current law, the state controls regulation of smoking throughout Florida.
A similar bill is pending in the Florida Senate. In the Senate version of this bill, there would be exemptions for pipe tobacco and cigars that don’t have filters or plastic tips.
The News Service of Florida contributed to this report.