The ban on smoking on the beaches of Barcelona issued last year by the government of the then mayor Ada Colau has become wet paper. Many bathers continue to smoke on the city’s beaches, and the City Council has not yet imposed any sanctions in this regard.
The Consistory banned cigarettes on four city beaches in the summer of 2021. This pilot test satisfied the Colau executive, who a year later extended the ban to the rest of the coast. The aim of the measure was to improve the health of bathers and preserve the environment. Smoking is very harmful and leaves behind a string of blemishes that take years to disappear.
At that time, the City Council deployed several very colorful informational posters and a handful of civic agents in charge of ordering offenders to put out their cigarettes. The municipal executive always stressed that the drive for the ban would never be a collection, that the Urban Guard would only fine offenders if they refused to put down their attitude.
The truth is that most of the users of Barcelona’s beaches do not seem to be aware of it. “Is it forbidden to smoke on the beach? I had no idea.” Many smokers exhaust their pipes with peace of mind and are very surprised by the information. Maybe too much. “Then I can smoke on the promenade but not on the sand?”. “And can you smoke in the bars?” Yes, smoking is allowed in the beach bars. “Ha, ha, ha… Barcelona is the only city where you go to the bar to smoke”.
The tourists, on the other hand, frown when the ban is explained to them, they fear that they are actually taking their hair, but they immediately put out their cigarettes and put away their burilla. And people who don’t smoke shrug. “It’s a good idea. Whatever it is to put aside tobacco…”. In these times, many non-smokers have no problems drawing attention to those who skip this ban on public transport, for example, but not many have not yet fully internalized this about smoke-free beaches.
And anyone who spends a few afternoons on any beach in the city will see how the presence of civic agents is not as common as last year.
Municipal sources reply that “when smokers are detected, the informants act and explain the prohibition to them”. The Consistory envisages that the agents of the Urban Guard intervene to report the infringement in question in cases of repeated non-compliance. The amount of this fine is thirty euros.
“In any case, the City Council has not yet made any complaint for this concept – the municipal sources continue -. It must be remembered that the municipal objective is to inform citizens so that they respect the ban. So the Consistory has already reinforced the billboards that inform of the prohibition placed on all accesses to the city’s beaches”. The City Council does not make any other assessment of the experience.
Perhaps the Endreça Plan of the government of the new mayor, the socialist Jaume Collboni, in order to restore order in the city’s public space, has other priorities for this summer. The municipal police who patrol the coast of Barcelona these days seem much more concerned with tempering the continuous traffic of unlicensed itinerant sellers of mojitos, pareos, parasols, beer cans, temporary tattoos and other products, than chasing smokers.
