Smokers have one summer left to puff away at Vancouver's scenic parks and beaches after the city's parks board voted unanimously to ban lighting up at both.
The board agreed Monday night to impose the ban in the roughly 200 parks and on the 18 kilometres of beaches in Vancouver, effective September 1 – though it still must vote to approve a bylaw amendment before the ban becomes law.
Board commissioner Raj Hundal says the ban is backed by health officials and the scientific community.
"I have letters of support from the Heart and Stroke Foundation, I have emails from the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority, I also have emails from leading no-smoking experts from the University of British Columbia," said Hundal.
"There is obviously scientific support toward bringing a ban."
But critics, like Robert Holmes of the BC Civil Liberties Association, say the ban will trample on smokers' rights and be essentially unenforceable.
"From a civil libertarian perspective, we start off with the basic principle that if what you're doing is your own free choice, and the only person it can cause harm to is yourself, then what business do other people or the state have to tell you not to do so?"
Smoking is the leading cause of death in B.C., while exposure to second-hand smoke is third.
A report, which was posted on the park board's website last week, said cigarette butts are also a danger environmentally.
Related: Read the full parks board report here
"We use machinery to collect the garbage that we have, the pop cans, the chip bags, but unfortunately the machinery that we utilize can't pick up those cigarette butts that are embedded in the sand," Hundal said in an interview.
"What quite often happens is those cigarette butts then wash up on our shores."
Hundal said the smoking ban has been discussed since last year and an online survey was conducted on the park board's website in the fall.
Those who clicked onto the website were presented with a pop-up window that asked if they wanted to take part.
Of the 608 responses recorded, 75 per cent favoured the smoking ban at beaches.
Ninety per cent of the survey's respondents categorized themselves as non-smokers. The report said about 87 per cent of British Columbians don't smoke.
With files from The Canadian Press
