Benidorm bans smoking on its most popular beaches
Two of the most famous beaches on the Costa Blanca will be smoke-free this summer
Benidorm is jumping on the smoke-free beach bandwagon and has banned cigarettes in the accessible areas of both Levante and Poniente beaches, two of the most famous shorelines in the tourist capital of the Costa Blanca.
This bold move aims to “create an environment free of harmful tobacco smoke” by warning of the danger that exposure to it poses for smokers, and also for passive smokers, the Councillor for Beaches, Mónica Gómez, explained this week.
The ban comes as part of an agreement between the Benidorm City Council and the Spanish Association Against Cancer (AECC) to create more smoke-free spaces, no easy feat given that tobacco causes around 60,000 deaths in Spain each year.
It is, therefore, the “responsibility” of the local government “to ensure the well-being and health of citizens,” the councillor added.
The Accessible Beach areas of Benidorm have all the necessary facilities and adapted services so that people with functional diversity can enjoy the sea and sand without barriers. They promote equality and social inclusion. Now, they also advertise that they are ‘smoke-free spaces’.
Alongside posters advertising the initiative up and down the coast, the campaign also encourages bathers to share their experience on social media using the hashtag #RespiroLibre and the AECC hashtag #TodosContraElCáncer.
Now that the beach smoking ban is up and running, the council and AECC want to create more public smoke-free areas. To this end, they are “studying the expansion of the initiative to other municipal spaces” like parks and gardens, including the popular El Moralet trail.
“It is about raising awareness, sensitising and disseminating among citizens the need to prevent smoking and the services that help people to quit a habit that causes enormous damage and affects patients and their families” the councillor concluded.
In other news: Crazy queues in Orihuela Costa as taxi shortage worsens
Image: Zarateman via Wikimedia Commons
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