By: The opinion Posted 25 May 2023, 22:43 pm EDT
While cigarettes, cigars, pipe tobacco and any other lighted tobacco products are no longer allowed on Miami Beach’s beaches and public parks as of January of this year, unfiltered cigars and vaping were exceptions.
However, An ordinance introduced by a Miami, Florida, commissioner now also prohibits “the use of tobacco, cannabis, and use of electric cigarettes” in parks and beacheswas approved this Thursday by the commission of this city.
“City beaches and parks are public spaces where residents enjoy time outdoors. Mainly, they are places where parents take their children to enjoy sports activities,” Commissioner Manolo Reyes, the promoter of this measure, said in a statement.
For this reason, Reyes added, “it would be contradictory to think that we are taking our children and the elderly to places where they will be affected by secondhand smoke that causes such a negative effect on health.”
The ordinance, the statement indicates, will become effective ten days after its approval by the commission.
During this ten-day period, notifications will be installed in public buildings, parks and beaches to inform the population. “Those who do not comply with the ordinance could face fines,” the commission notes.
The city of Miami Beach, the mecca of beach tourism in Florida, joined the global trend on January 1, 2023 to ban smoking in places like beaches and parks, with the exception of cigars.
Alex Fernandez, the councilor who promoted the ordinance in Miami Beach, said, before its entry into forcewhich has had to be banned because smokers have not been able to take the remains of their habit with them when they smoke in parks and beaches.
These materials, which contain microplastics and chemical substances, end up in the stomachs of animals and contaminate the sea, sand and grass, Fernández stressed.
Commissioner Fernández believes that it would be good if the exception to cigars ended sometime, because even if they do not contain filters and are biodegradable, other people do not have to inhale their smoke, although he sees it as difficult to achieve.
With information from EFE.