Alex Trelinski
BARCELONA’S beaches will become ‘no-smoking’ areas from this summer.
The permanent ban on lighting up follows a successful pilot on four beaches in the Catalan capital last year.
The City Council has devised a two-phase ahead of the smoking ban across ten beaches covering five kilometres of the Barcelona coastline.
Until June, the authority will undertake a campaign to tell people about the health and environmental advantages of having smoke-free beaches with no more cigarette butts left in the sand.
The ban will come into force from July with law-breakers getting an on-the-spot €30 fine.
Barcelona council says they were encouraged by last year’s experimental ban on the beaches at Sant Miquel, Somorrostro, Nova Icaria, and Nova Marbella.
Ecological Transition councillor, Eloi Bardia, said: “Last year nobody was penalised in the pilot areas. Everyone understood the rules perfectly and it was only necessary to warn an occasional smoker to move to the promenade to smoke.”
The council says that around 20% of Barcelona’s populations are smokers, and that numbers of people lighting up on pilot beaches in 2021 was seven times lower compared to the rest of the area’s beaches.
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