VERO BEACH — The Vero Beach Parks and Recreation Advisory Commission wants the City Council to take up a ban on smoking in city parks, the group decided after five months and three meetings to debate the issue.
The commission has made a recommendation to the Vero Beach City Council to post signs near playgrounds in city parks and place cigarette butt receptacles at beach boardwalks in an effort to curb smoking in areas where children are present.
Whether the City Council will take up the issue at an upcoming meeting remains to be seen. The next council meeting is Dec. 6.
“What’s offensive is smoking,” said new Commission member Lin Reading when the discussion turned to what signs would be posted where. “They need to be as strong as possible.”
Reading ultimately voted against recommending the sign resolution to the Vero Beach City Council because the resolution did not specifically address smoking at the city beaches.
She said the beaches, too, needed to be non-smoking areas.
Other members of the commission, who debated the issue twice before at previous meetings, cited concerns about the potential impact on tourism if beaches were so restricted.
The commission, though, unanimously approved a recommendation to the Vero Beach City Council to allow cigarette butt receptacles be placed at entry points to the city’s beaches along the boardwalks.
The Substance Awareness Council has already placed one receptacle at the Vero Beach Marina and has enough grant funding to place two more.
“Humiston would be an ideal spot,” Commission member Debbie-Kay Whitehouse said, adding that Jaycee Park’s boardwalk and the one at South Beach would also be acceptable places.
“Our beaches are filled with cigarette butts,” Reading said.
The commission decided to allow Parks and Recreation Director Rob Slezak to work with the city’s Public Works Department to determine at which two parks the receptacles would be best located given the amount of discarded cigarette butts.
Kristen Britt, of the Substance Awareness Council, told the commission that the organization would expect to receive more grant funding in the future to buy more receptacles to be placed elsewhere throughout the city.
