{"id":8581,"date":"2016-05-27T01:28:08","date_gmt":"2016-05-27T05:28:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/?p=8581"},"modified":"2016-05-27T01:28:08","modified_gmt":"2016-05-27T05:28:08","slug":"n-j-beach-smoking-ban-in-christies-hands","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/2016\/05\/n-j-beach-smoking-ban-in-christies-hands\/","title":{"rendered":"N.J. Beach Smoking Ban in Christie’s Hands"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Dunes<\/a>

Dunes along Lavallette\u2019s beachfront. (Photo: Daniel Nee)<\/p><\/div>\n

A bill that would ban smoking on beaches statewide is awaiting the signature of Gov. Chris Christie, however it is unclear if the governor will reverse his previous veto of the measure, which he said takes too much power away from municipalities.<\/p>\n

Sponsors of the bill are hoping Christie will reconsider the veto now that he is no longer seeking the GOP presidential nomination, however the governor did not seem to change course during an appearance of New Jersey 101.5\u2019s \u201cAsk the Governor\u201d show earlier this week.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is saying even if you don\u2019t want to prohibit smoking on your beach you must,\u201d Christie said during the show<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Senate President Steve Sweeney (D-Camden) held a news conference on the boardwalk in Belmar \u2013 which bans smoking on its beaches \u2013 Thursday to call on Christie to sign the legislation into law.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust because it\u2019s sand doesn\u2019t mean you drop your butts in it,\u201d he said, according to a CBS New York report<\/a>. \u201cThere are thousands of cigarette butts on those beaches, and you got kids playing with them. You know they\u2019ve been in people\u2019s mouths.\u201d<\/p>\n

Seaside Heights and Seaside Park both already ban smoking on their beaches, as does Ortley Beach and Toms River\u2019s north beach areas. Lavallette<\/a>\u00a0and Brick Township beaches both allow smoking. The bill, if signed into law \u2013 or overridden by the legislature \u2013 allows for up to 15 percent of a municipality\u2019s beachfront to be set aside for a designated smoking area.<\/p>\n

A smoking ban has been favored not only by health advocates, but environmentalists, who say cigarette butts are the most common article of beach litter found during sweeps each year in towns where smoking is still allowed.<\/p>\n

\u201cCigarettes\u00a0not only pose a risk to human health, but cause harm to our environment and animals,\u201d which ingest them, said Jeff Tittel, director of the New Jersey Chapter of the Sierra Club. \u201cThat is why we need a statewide\u00a0ban.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A bill that would ban smoking on beaches statewide is awaiting the signature of Gov. Chris Christie, however it is unclear if the governor will reverse his previous veto of the measure, which he said takes too much power away from municipalities. Sponsors of the bill are hoping Christie will reconsider the veto now that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1372,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[20],"tags":[251,24,942,1730],"class_list":["post-8581","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-shore-environment","tag-beach-smoking","tag-brick-nj-news","tag-new-jersey","tag-smoking-ban"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/beach_iii.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pgt2Ft-2ep","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8581","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8581"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8581\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1372"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8581"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8581"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8581"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}