Smoking cigarettes at ski resorts is a bit of an interesting topic in the United States. Some resorts outright ban smoking on their property, some have dedicated areas on the resort, and a significant majority ban smoking on the ski lifts. Then you get into legal marijuana in some states, but that’s almost always banned in public spaces, which include ski resorts (yes, even for Colorado). Of course, at the end of the day, a lot of those rules are pretty hard to enforce, and no matter what ski patrol does, there will likely always be smoke somewhere on the mountain.

In Europe, on the other hand, smoking at ski areas is much more common. In fact, beginning on December 17th, 2022, Les Gets, located in the Haute-Savoie region of eastern France, will become the first ski area in Europe to ban smoking.

Five smoking areas will be available for cigarette breaks on the ski mountain,  marked with banners and containing ashtrays made from recycled skis, but smoking will be banned by municipal decree everywhere else on the mountain or on the lifts. Smoking will still be allowed in the village, but ashtrays will be distributed throughout the town and throwing cigarette butts to the ground will be forbidden.

This new restriction comes after the results of the village’s “Montage Propre”  (Clean Mountain) day earlier in 2022, when more than 3,000 cigarette butts were found throughout the ski area and town. Les Gets also points out that around 20-25,000 tons of cigarette butts are added to the environment every year in France, pushing the area to take the lead on change.

Image Credit: Les Gets – Page Officielle via Facebook

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