No-Smoking Wave Hits Ocean City Beach

Lighting up a cigarette on the beach in Ocean City may soon be made more difficult by leaders in the summer resort mecca.

Eight million people visit Ocean City beaches every year, so the sand is crowded during the summer months. This spring the resort town’s City Council pondered a smoking ban so non-smokers could avoid secondhand smoke by the water, but failed to act on the measure.

“This is very disturbing to a lot of people. I don’t like it personally when I’m on the beach,” Brent Ashley, Ocean City councilman, told WJZ TV in April.

Delaware’s state beaches, Dewey, Rehoboth and Fenwick, are smoke-free, WJZ notes.

A modified proposal came up for debate this week, with council members voting 4-3 to restrict smoking to a designated area on the beach and along the boardwalk, reports WJLA TV. Electronic cigarettes would not be included in the new law.

The designated smoking areas would be located at least 50 feet from the beach, according to the draft of the law. Signs indicating where the smoking areas are located would be installed, as would receptacles for smokers to use.

A draft of the proposed restrictions will be presented for council approval in September. If adopted, the regulations would go into effect May 1, 2015.