TYBEE ISLAND, Ga. (WSAV) –- Lights up on Georgia’s Tybee Beach will before long appear with a charge.
The Tybee Island Metropolis Council voted Thursday night time to ban smoking cigarettes and vaping across the beach front.
A pilot software that expires at the end of May perhaps banned smoking in the spot all-around the pier. The council started off looking at a beach front-wide ban in March.
Volunteers with Fight Filthy Tybee have been pushing for the ban for approximately 7 a long time.
“It can be a playground, but it doesn’t have to be a junkyard,” founder Tim Arnold stated. “There’s just so a lot litter on that beach front and it’s time to begin turning that around and fostering a extra liable beachgoer, which usually means really do not leave your cigarette butts on the seashore. Now, you cannot.”
Arnold explained Struggle Filthy Tybee volunteers choose up about 100,000 cigarette butts on the beach each calendar year, making it the premier supply of litter.
Citizens experienced a chance to weigh in on the issue, and 63% said they supported the ban.
“We’re one of the couple of beaches on the East Coastline that you could smoke on,” Metropolis Manager Shawn Gillen mentioned. “This is not uncommon, it shouldn’t be a surprise.”

Last 12 months, Gillen mentioned additional than 6.5 million people today frequented the island. He hopes the new procedures will enable comprise the escalating pile of litter that is frequently remaining guiding.
“If you consider just a tiny percentage of individuals men and women that make a decision to discard something like that on the seashore, it is tens of countless numbers of objects on the seashore,” he claimed. “The sheer volume of this is astronomical.”
But the ban is not welcome information for all beachgoers. A few council members voted against it, arguing persons have a suitable to smoke on the sand if they decide on.
“I definitely imagine this is a get for every person,” Arnold mentioned. “There’s a couple folks that are upset, by natural means. They consider something’s been taken absent, but in fact, something’s been provided to everyone, which is a thoroughly clean and safe beach.”
Volunteers stated it’s ultimately about earning Tybee Island far more spouse and children-helpful.
“There’s a great deal of responses that folks have made around the years that it’s not a harmless position for their young ones they really do not like the smoke,” Arnold reported. “I’ve heard moms and dads say their youngsters toes have been burned on lit cigarettes.”
Officers will get started enforcing the ban on June 1. But there will be a 3-week grace period of time through which violators will obtain only a warning. Just after that, it will be a $300 wonderful for any one caught using tobacco or vaping on the beach.
Officers said there will be selected smoking cigarettes places in the parking ton, but the prohibited zone formally begins at the crossovers. Surveillance cameras will also assistance officers spot people who smoke.