ED TAYLOR

Teenagers have always complained about growing up in Vero Beach. My generation in the 1960’s was no different. The Vero Beach City Council and the Indian River County Commission have both recently enacted ordinances affecting the sale of so-called electronic cigarettes, also known as E-Cigarettes, to minors (those under the age of 18), which most see as a good thing. Who wants to see a bunch of kids walking around huffing and puffing nicotine vapors into the common airspace of our citizenry as well as into their young lungs?. Certainly there are health issues involved with these plastic electronic drug delivery systems that affect everyone who chooses to use them. There is also a measure that will soon appear before the city council dealing with the issue of paid parking at some of our city parks. This is just a bad idea all the way around especially for anyone who expresses the desire to keep Vero, Vero.

The nicotine delivery system ordinances will not apply to me unless I am able to tap into the H. G. Wells concept of time travel and go back to pre-1969 Vero Beach, which I loved and I do remember well. Electronic cigarettes were not even a George Jetson space dream during those times and probably would have been laughed at if even discussed. If there was any kind of cigarette law regulating access to minors in Vero Beach, it certainly had no effect on a teenager’s ability to get cigarettes and get them cheap compared to today’s prices. Unmonitored cigarette machines were quite numerous and anyone with a quarter and a dime could choose their brand. There were machines at numerous gas stations that were out in the open and available to anyone even at times when the station was closed for business. There was a golf shack about 50 yards from my back door that I suppose was there to provide shelter from the elements but it was always open and had a Coke machine and a well supplied cigarette dispensary. The A&W drive-in had a cigarette machine that was always available. Cigarettes were literally just a match strike away without having to face the stern glance of a grocery or drug store cashier. I don’t know if they would have sold cigarettes to a minor back then because I never tried but I do know that getting a pack of cigarettes was quite easy if you wanted them (and you had a quarter and a dime). Of course the attitudes towards cigarettes along with our knowledge of their potential for an early death were much different in the 1960’s than they are today. My character in the junior class play at Vero Beach High School managed to smoke two cigarettes onstage during each performance without a word of criticism being leveled toward me, the play or the faculty director. That is something I simply cannot imagine happening today. A 16 year old boy smoking Winston 100’s on a public high school stage during a school sanctioned event?  Task force!!! Task force!!!

When is the last time anyone saw a cigarette vending machine?

In spite of the two new laws enacted in our county, electronic cigarettes are readily available to anyone who has access to the internet. This is a shame because it is apparent that our local governing bodies are trying to do the right thing to protect our children. In spite of laws to the contrary both tobacco and electronic cigarettes are still readily available to the teenagers of Vero Beach. It would seem, however, that with the absence of vending machines, obtaining them could be a tad more difficult.

With a fresh pack of Marlboros in hand it was not uncommon to strap a surfboard to the top of the family car and head over to “our” city surfing spot, Conn Beach. This was the only city beach that allowed surfing. There were no lifeguards and very little adult presence at all. Sure, there were better beaches for surfing outside of the city limits but none with the convenience and location of Conn Beach. The Vero Beach Police Department pretty much left us alone and even allowed unfettered visions of submarine races at night until 11 PM. It was truly our beach during the day and our parking area at night. If some government entity had attempted to impose a fee to park in that area, my high school brain at the time could only envision a revolt of monumental proportions. Parking fees at a city park were simply unimaginable . . . as they should be today.

Parking meters were nothing new for Vero Beach. I distinctly remember them as a child with diagonal parking in front of downtown and beach businesses. Feeding the meters was a common occurrence whether you wanted to go into Alma Lee’s to purchase gym clothes for the first year of junior high, cash a check at the Indian River Citrus Bank or really load up the meter to see a movie at the Florida Theater. Parking was not free in Vero Beach like it is today. Even as a pre-teen in 1963, I could not help but notice that the parking meters disappeared in short proximity to the opening of the Miracle Mile Plaza which was literally one-stop shopping with what appeared to be endless free parking. My developing thought process and powers of observation could see the impact this shopping revelation had on our downtown businesses. The removal of the parking meters, to the best of my recollection, was actually a cause for celebration. The powers that be came up with a catchy name for the day the meters were taken out of service. To the best of my memory that day was called ”Liberation Day”, but that is only my recollection. It could have been called something else. The result was no more paid parking in Vero Beach . . . and that was 50 years ago. You can still get a parking ticket for overextending your welcome in a parking space, but if you follow the rules (or the rain somehow washes away the chalk markings) you have nothing to worry about.

Find some old pictures of Vero Beach during that era and you will see diagonal parking with very ugly parking meters. Now the proposal is to charge a parking fee for city beachside parks. The details are still sketchy however the plan calls for a kiosk, which was a word seldom used if used at all back when we had parking meters. Other than that tacky appearance these would add to an ever-growing Ocean Drive, citizens should not have to pay for access to public beaches. My generation thought we owned Conn Beach. There were no lifeguards but we managed to take pretty good care of ourselves and swimmers knew that Conn was the surfing beach so there was little complaining. I believe the city council can expect strenuous opposition to this paid parking proposal scheduled for discussion in March and I also believe that I will be part of it. Just as the council recently rejected tacky advertising on lifeguard stands, tacky kiosks should meet the same warm rejection. Had such a stunt been tried in the late 1960s, I imagine those kiosks would have enjoyed a secondary life as a buoy or part of a man made reef.

Back to the electronic cigarettes. It actually is a nicotine delivery system and I have read that there are ways to introduce other substances into the human body using these devices. Nicotine is a poison and it is also the chemical in cigarettes that make them so highly addictive. I do not smoke but I did ask my cardiologist about the safety of these devices. They are not safe. No one knows what, if any, effect these secondhand vapors of nicotine might have on a non-user. Although they are safer overall than tobacco cigarettes, they are much more dangerous to the heart since the user is in fact isolating the one chemical that can cause arteries to constrict thereby compressing any blockage that could potentially cause a heart attack. This should be of real concern to anyone suffering from any form of cardio-vascular disease. Just like real cigarettes, these things will kill you.

Just as I believe our local government should make a good faith effort to restrict the sale of these devices to those who lack the maturity to think for themselves, this is also something parents should closely monitor however difficult it may be.

Gone are the days when my mother scoured the house for an ashtray because the family doctor was coming over for a house call to tend and hopefully mend a sick child. I remember those days and  can still see the pack of Salems in the good doctor’s shirt pocket.

Even though we were happy to pay for a house call (and provide an ash tray), no one thought of charging the doctor for parking. The City of Vero Beach should forever shelve the idea of going back 50 years to charge our people for parking for the right to enjoy our city parks.

Even with the relatively new word kiosk, this is a giant step backwards. This concept is not and never has been Vero Beach.