Thread: No Smoking on the pier?

Yesterday while several of us were taking a break from the heat, someone (not me) started talking about how people have no respect for our pier or their fellow fishermen/women.
What started the conversation was the enormous amount of cigarette butts wedged between the boards on the deck. And god only knows how many butts are tossed in the water.

Later in the afternoon when I relocated to the shallows for another look at the pets, someone else (not me) brought up the exact same subject. Being that it was brought up twice in the same day by two different and the fishing is a tad slow and we need some excitement, here is the question:
Should smoking be banned on the pier?

NOTE: This is not an official poll, just curiosity.

how you going to burn the braided lines?? I don't care one way or the other ....I am not a smoker

maybe ticket the offenders for littering, but with all the other trash people let fly, that might be hard to do too....with trash cans all over the place I can't see why there are some sooooo lazy

I don't really care, in the end ya might as well bang your head on the railing... Watch out for the rotten bait and pelican crap.
I don't smoke any more, people smoking doesn't bother me, litter is litter and there is plenty of it.
Butts just don't get picked up and don't readily decompose or blow away, so they accumulate and are an eyesore.
Smoking bans in public open air areas are in my opinion, ridiculous.
Either enforce the litter laws or don't... And they can't.

Idiots are everywhere, not just someone leaving their butts laying around, leaving bull reds on the deck to rot, tourists stepping over the red line, unattended/unsupervised children running amuck, cutting bait and leaving it on the rails, etc. When you have that many people in one spot, there will always be a mix of the good the bad and the ugly.

This should be a good one!

Popcorn anyone?

If they would look into putting the cigarette disposal containers in different places throughout the pier I think it would help a bit, but I doubt it would solve the problem completely. The last time I was out there I noticed lots of trash everywhere. This included everything from cigarette butts to cans, paper and fishing tackle. One of my big pet peeves as fat as trash in general goes is the disposal of old fishing tackle. I can't count the number of times I have had to dig a hook out of my flip flops, or untangle my self out of old fishing line someone just discarded onto the ground rather than the trash receptacle that was 5 feet from them. It's going to be a continuing problem without some of the regulars taking the initiative to pickup trash, or correcting someone who is just throwing trash onto the pier. If we don't do something about the problem proactively, the jewel of the Alabama gulf coast is going to become the turd of the southeast. Yes there are people employed to do the job, but with our help it will lessen the work load on them and free them up to do things such as clean the bathroom at the T.

I don't think they should be banned, but I absolutely believe there should be a LARGE fine for not disposing of them properly. (note, this is coming from a non-smoker)

I smoke... a LOT. I keep a can for butts and a bag for trash right on my pier cart, so I can say I've never littered the pier or the ocean. Ok, I've lost quite a few pieces of shiny plastic and metal... but that is NOT officially littering.

I voted no thank you...

I retired from smoking 2 years ago but I still think smokers should have rights as do the rest of us so no don't take that away also, encourage them to put the butts where they belong.