Town Will Ban Smoking At Beaches With Eye On Legal Weed; COVID Wanes

Members of the East Hampton Town Board voiced support for a daytime ban on smoking at town beaches, beach parking lots and around beach pavilions — in advance of the first summer when cannabis will be legal in the state.

While most other local municipalities have banned smoking cigarettes and various forms of electronic tobacco smoking devices at beaches for several years — East Hampton Village did so in 2018, Southampton Town in 2013 — East Hampton Town has not.

But with the recreational use of marijuana now legalized in the state, putting marijuana on the same legal plane as tobacco, the town is pressing to enact new limitations on all forms of smoking at lifeguarded beaches.

During a discussion at Tuesday’s work session via Zoom, Town Board members informally agreed on a 500-foot no-smoking buffer extending on either side of each beach lifeguard stand and upland to any beach pavilions and parking areas.

“We are seeing a tremendous amount of smoking marijuana on our public bathing beaches [where] there’s a lot of children and families,” said Councilman David Lys in introducing the proposal to adopt a smoking prohibition.

Beach managers have already laid out maps showing the zones of the sand that would be protected from smoking at various possible buffers, from 100 feet to 500 feet.

“When I look at this, the 100 feet maybe looks a little too short to me, but the 250 seems a little long,” Supervisor Peter Van Scoyoc said at the outset of the discussion.

But Councilwoman Sylvia Overby said she would prefer to see the broadest buffer possible, which drew nods of support from other board members as well.

“From my perspective, I think probably 500 feet or 1,000 feet,” Overby said. “Cigarette butts are one of the most prolific things found as trash on beaches, so I’d like to eliminate those … So just from that perspective, I’d go farther away.”

Councilwoman Kathee Burke-Gonzalez said she thinks the prohibition needs to be extended to parking lots. “During lifeguarded times, families are going through there — I don’t think you should be able to vape in the parking lot,” she said.

“Everybody would be vaping in the parking lot,” Senior Harbormaster Tim Treadwell added.

The prohibition will have to be imposed by local law, which Lys said he hoped to have drafted and ready for a public hearing by March so that the law could be in place by May.

The East Hampton Town Senior Center will resume its senior nutrition program’s in-person meal service on Monday, February 7.

Seniors who prefer not to return to in-person dining and would rather continue picking up frozen grab-and-go meals at the Senior Center will be able to do so as well.

The COVID-19 positivity rate of those being tested at the town’s testing site in Wainscott has dropped from a peak of more than 33 percent in the first week of January to about 7 percent at the start of February.

Because of the steep decline, and a drop in the demand for tests, the town testing site will be reducing its hours of operation to just Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

The town has three upcoming COVID-19 vaccination clinics this month at East Hampton Town Hall, on February 10 and 16, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., and on February 22, from 4 to 8 p.m. Appointments can be made through the town website, ehamptonny.gov.