Australia: Soft Councils Are Letting Sydney''s Beach Smokers Puff Free by Not Enforcing Ban Legislation

Source from:  Daily Telegraph/Sunday Telegraph 12/31/2014

Smokers are getting away with flouting bans on some of Sydney's most popular beaches because they are not being fined.

Despite having the power to hit smokers with $110 fines, council -rangers patrolling beaches including Manly, Bondi and Coogee have been told by their bosses not to fine those lighting up on the sand.

Waverley, Randwick and Manly councils do not force their rangers to issue $110 fines for failing to obey a no-smoking sign.

The rangers just politely ask -people not to do it again. Council rangers can also fine people who -dispose of their butts on the sand up to $200. But they don't.

Clean Up Australia boss Ian -Kiernan said the majority of people who live near the beach have got the no-smoking message but many -visitors continued to smoke. "This noxious material is blowing all over the place and there is legislation to stop it on the beaches," he said.

Mr Kiernan said a cigarette butt collection study had calculated there were more than one million discarded cigarettes on Bondi Beach.

Mr Kiernan urged councils to take more action. "The rangers have to fine them," he said. Last month Randwick Council became the latest beachside local government area to ban smoking on the beach.

Randwick councillor Katherine Neilson, who put the smoking ban motion to council, said it was an -obvious next step after smoking had been stopped at bus stops and -children's playgrounds.

"We didn't want to make it a money-making exercise because I think most people, if asked by a lifeguard not to smoke, will -apologise and put the cigarette out," she said.

Waverley mayor Sally Betts confirmed its rangers do not fine beach smokers and the council relied on no-smoking signs and education campaigns to deter puffers.

"We know people do smoke on the beach but the local residents tend not to do it now," Ms Betts said.

"But tourists obviously don't know smoking regulations — there is a -language barrier and many are used to being able to smoke anywhere they want in their own countries. Our rangers are continually saying to people 'this is a non-smoking area, please don't smoke' and people usually apologise and say 'we didn't know'."

English backpacker Emma Richardson, 26, who was photographed smoking at Bondi Beach in recent weeks, said she did not realise she was risking a $110 fine because she did not see the no-smoking signs painted on the concrete pedestrian ramps leading down to the sand.

"I've seen other people smoking on the beach," she said.

Another overseas visitor -photographed smoking, who declined to give her name, said
she was not aware of the ban and "wouldn't smoke on the beach again".

At Manly a group of tourists smoked while lying on their towels close to the swimming flags.

One of the women said that she did not realise she was breaking any rules. Enditem