Lloret de Mar will prohibit smoking on all its beaches and coves starting this year. The measure, which is expected to come into force at Easter, represents another step by the Consistory in its fight to eradicate tobacco and cigarette butts from the sandy beaches of this tourist municipality, which receives more than a million tourists annually.
If until now, the municipality prohibited smoking on a few beaches and coves, the City Council has approved extending the restriction to the entire coastline. It has also extended the implementation period of the measure, which will be in force all year round. Until now, the ban was limited to the summer months.
In 2018, the then municipal government already banned tobacco on Sa Boadella beach and in different areas of four other coves. The chosen areas were those with the greatest influx of families.
The terraces of the beach bars are outside the norm when their owners decide so and the promenade, located next to the beach.
The Lloret de Mar City Council approved this Monday the modification of the Civility and Citizen Coexistence Ordinance, approved in 2012 and which introduced some changes in 2018. He did it by 21 votes in favor.
The plenary session now opens a period of thirty days of public presentation and once the allegations have been resolved, final approval will proceed. The forecast is that this Easter the measure may be operational.
The mayor of Lloret de Mar, Adrià Lamelas (PSC) explains that the proposal seeks “a friendlier and more sustainable Lloret, which preserves the environment and the right of citizens to have a clean public space free of smoke and cigarette butts.”
It will not be the only modification to the civility ordinance. The City Council will also prohibit massive bachelor and bachelorette parties, an action that disturbed the tranquility of the neighbors and was contrary to “the city model” that the City Council advocates.
The measure is intended to avoid the shouting, chanting and whistling that is most often implicit in this type of action and thus guarantee rest and coexistence among neighbors. They also want to avoid inconvenience to tourists who walk along the road and other public spaces.
The restriction on this type of actions, as other tourist municipalities such as Tossa de Mar have done, was a demand from the neighbors, who in recent times had seen celebrations of this nature increase.
There are many companies that advertise on the Internet and offer these events, some from other countries. A profile that, according to the City Council, has nothing to do with the city model they advocate, based on family tourism
An image, that of bachelor parties, that the City Council wants to banish. As he also wants to avoid long queues forming in front of nightlife establishments.
The City Council instructs the owners and staff of these establishments to ensure that outside pubs, discos or nightclubs there is no “unnecessary accumulation of people that generate queues, cause noise nuisance or disturb local rest.”
The ordinance highlights that this obligation will be of special attention in the Special Regime Acoustic Zone (ZARE) of the municipality, where at night the queues on public roads to access activities or places of public attendance will be subject to the municipal authorization of occupation of public roads.
Some modifications that, according to the Councilor for Citizen Security, Jordi Martínez (Junts) have been prepared in collaboration with other municipal groups and the municipality’s unions.