OCEAN CITY — The installation of cigarette disposal receptacles near the Boardwalk earlier this summer was apparently a huge success, but getting the private sector to follow suit remains challenging.
Last year, it was determined an unintended impact of prohibiting smoking on the Boardwalk moved the issue to the side streets. In many cases, smokers were adhering to the ban on the Boardwalk, instead stepping off on a side street to partake, often just a few feet from the crowded promenade.
With that new trend came the larger issue of cigarette butt litter accumulating at the street end adjacent to the Boardwalk. As a result, the town earlier this summer installed cigarette butt receptacles, or so-called butt huts, along with signage stating, “smoking prohibited beyond this point,” on the side streets near the ramps approaching the Boardwalk.
Councilman Tony DeLuca provided the Mayor and Council with an overview of this month’s Coastal Resources Legislative Committee, or Green Team, including an update on the success of the butt hut program. DeLuca read an email from Public Works Director Hal Adkins, whose department oversees the butt hut program.
“Wow, the west side butt huts are a hit,” Adkins’ email to the Green Team reads. “We will be changing some of them out later this fall to larger diameter tubes due to the high daily use.”
DeLuca said the butt hut program was really making a difference and the success was quantifiable. He also provided an update on the second prong of the two-prong attack on cigarette butt litter. Around the same time the town installed its butt huts near the Boardwalk on private property, a partnership with the Maryland Coastal Bays Program provided similar cigarette butt receptacles to private businesses in the area. DeLuca said while the public component was successful, the private component has not been thus far.
“The private effort has been slow to start and we have some hurdles to get over,” he said. “The Coastal Bays Program has distributed 50 butt huts to private businesses, however, the businesses have been slow to put them up. We’re going to do a fall follow-up to determine what the roadblocks are.”
Mayor Rick Meehan compared the private sector butt hut installation issue to the popular Lights in Bikes program. Each year, the town and its various agencies procures hundreds of bicycle lights to distribute to residents and visitors including J-1 summer workers.
The lights are installed right when the recipients get them. In many cases, police officers pull over bicycles without lights and install lights right on the spot. Meehan said a similar approach might be needed with the private sector butt hut issue.
“When you talk about delivering the cigarette butt containers to the businesses, it’s kind of like when you put lights on bikes,” he said. “You actually put the lights right on the bikes and that’s how they get on. You just don’t hand them out. Maybe when you deliver the butt huts, you can put them up right then and there. Sometimes if you don’t put them up right then and there, it doesn’t get done.”
Councilman Mark Paddack related similar challenges in getting local businesses to put up disorderly conduct signage a few years back.’
“What I found with the disorderly conduct signs is just handing them out didn’t ensure they were going to be posted,” he said. “When I showed up with a screw drill gun and screws in my hand, it was taken care of immediately. Maybe we’d get better results if we went out and put them up when we delivered them.”
