Jacksonville Beach latest city to ban tobacco use on beaches

This year, Tobacco Free Florida is targeting youth with Live Vape Free.

Smokers have been increasingly restricted from in-door facilities for years. But the Jacksonville Beach City Council is taking it further, approving a smoking ban on coastal community beaches.

Jacksonville Beach City Council members joined a growing number of Florida municipalities by voting unanimously to outlaw smoking or vaping on open beaches. The wording of the measure spells out that smoking and vaping are “prohibited activities and items on Atlantic Ocean beach to provide a prohibition against smoking on the beach.”

Violators of the ordinance will draw a citation and pay the city a $50 fine.

Jacksonville Beach Mayor Christine Hoffman said that ordinarily, enforcement of ordinances goes into effect as soon as they are approved by the Council. But given the realities that many people going to the shoreline in Jacksonville Beach live in nearby municipalities, there will be a period of adjustment on the no-tobacco policy on beaches.

“While technically in effect upon passage, the city will implement a period of public education and law enforcement training before enforcement begins later this summer,” Hoffman said in an email statement.

The main reason for the ban on beaches for tobacco products was centered on health concerns.

“Secondhand smoke … causes coronary artery disease, asthma attacks, heart disease, heart attacks, stroke, and lung cancer in adults and Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, middle ear infections, bronchitis, asthma, pneumonia, and low birthweight in children,” the ordinance states.

While Jacksonville Beach is Duval County’s most populated coastal community, it is catching up to other beach towns in that county. Neptune Beach to the immediate north and further north is Atlantic Beach and each of those cities has instituted similar bans on tobacco products on the beach which includes all forms of tobacco including most cigars, pipes, e-cigarettes and vaping pens.

Some other areas of Florida have also instituted outdoor tobacco use bans on beaches, including Treasure Island on the Gulf Coast, Dania Beach and Fort Lauderdale in South Florida, and Okaloosa County in the Panhandle, among other areas.

The Legislature approved a measure in 2022 that allowed tobacco bans in local municipalities.