The new rule only allows tobacco in beach bars, foresees a significant improvement in pollution by cigarette butts and contemplates penalties of €30 for those users who fail to comply with it
the beaches of Barcelona become spaces smoke-free after the regulations were approved in the municipal plenary session last Friday. The new measure, which comes into force this week, will have €30 penalties for those bathers who do not comply with the regulations. The goodbye to tobacco has a specific exception: in beach bars it will be possible to continue smoking or using a device that releases nicotine.
Despite providing for this sanction, the city council considers that the regulations are being well received by all users and foresees that the fines will be minimal since during the pilot test carried out last summer, the majority of bathers who were informed that the beaches were smoke-free spaces accepted the regulations without much conflict.
During the pilot test carried out in the summer of 2021 on four of the 10 city beaches (Sant Miquel, Somorrostro, Nova Icària and Nova Marbella), it was possible to reduce 18% to 3% the percentage of people who smoked on the beach. These results have served as a relevant precedent when applying this measure definitively to the entire coastline of the city. To this end, an awareness campaign began in April this year that included informative sign distributed throughout all the beaches and with a team of informers who were informing users of the regulations. For ensuring compliance of the new regulations have, throughout the summer season, a total of 10 informers, one per beach, which will provide information to all people about the tobacco ban on the entire surface of the arena and in the bathing areas.
Benefit for health and the environment
With this new regulation, Barcelona has become the first city of the state to ban tobacco on all its beaches. In order to carry out the measure, the city council has relied on the state waste law, which enables municipalities to ban tobacco on the beaches to reduce butts. In Spain alone, it is estimated that five million butts end up in the sea each year. Eloi BadiaCouncilor for Climate Emergency and Ecological Transition, explained that during the pilot test the reduction of cigarette butts was 50%data that shows that this initiative generates a positive impact on the environment. On the Bogatell breakwater, he stressed this Monday that the butts “they are highly polluting elements that take 10 years to break down and therefore they pollute the sea water enormously”. In fact, Badia already highlighted in Friday’s plenary session that in addition to being beneficial for people’s health, the ban on cigarettes on the beach is beneficial for the planet’s.
Gemma TarafaCouncilor for Health, who appeared together with Badia to comment on the farewell to cigarettes in the arena, wanted to clarify that one of the main reasons for implementing this new measure is that the smoking is the leading cause of preventable mortality in the entire Spanish state. In addition, diseases derived from smoking not only affect smokers, but also people who consume smoke passively. For this reason, this first pilot test was carried out on some of Barcelona’s beaches, to evaluate the impact of the tobacco ban on the city’s coastline. “The data from the first pilot test has been very positive. When we do not intervene we have a 18% of people who smoke on the beachwhile on the intervened beaches, the percentage is reduced to 3%. This has a very positive impact on the health of people and the environment and that is why we decided to carry out the regulations and implement them on all the beaches”, explained Tarafa.