Wrightsville Beach puts smoking ban on November ballot


Wrightsville Beach voters will be going to the polls Nov. 6 to decide whether to ban smoking on the town’s beaches. In a unanimous vote last week, the board of aldermen agreed to place the issue on the ballot. If it’s approved, Wrightsville Beach would become the first in the state to prohibit smoking on the strand, a narrow strip of land defined by a 1939 seaside property survey and the average ocean high-tide mark. Wrightsville Beach is among few beach communities where the town owns the land from the seaside edge of private lots to the high-tide mark facing the ocean.