But when such restrictions are extended to beaches, parks, sidewalks and now to the homes of smokers, the argument that third-party harms must be prevented becomes increasingly untenable.
Last year the architect Joseph Pell Lombardi finished the condominium conversion of a former warehouse at 27-29 North Moore Street, which extends to Beach Street.
"It's also an economic issue," he said, adding that in the event of any "really nasty water" such as large waves brought on by a hurricane, the city may extend the beach patrol hours to keep people out of the water.
The set was surrounded by chroma key green screens, which the visual effects artists later used to extend the beach with plates shot at Saunton Sands in North Devon.
At Aldeburgh this year, the presence of the Argentinian-born composer Mauricio Kagel at a range of astonishingly well-attended concerts ensured a refreshing, somewhat off-the-wall atmosphere that extended to the beach for the performance, by volunteers, of a work featuring 111 bicycles.
She delighted in puncturing the pretensions of "Snob Hill" (her father's name for the tonier precincts of East Hampton) by going barefoot to parties and extending her beach-club privileges to aging rock-star friends.
The beachfront is more built-up and the beach road extended, villages have grown and merged, but the geography of the beach remains as it was and the remains of the coastal defenses can still be visited.
It covers approximately 18 km of coastline composed primarily of extended beach-rock (coquina) and granite reefs separated by beds of mussels and rhodoliths and shell/sandy patches.
In his loafers, he marched over the dunes and led me down into the sand, until we reached a stretch of beach that extended to the horizon without a soul in sight.
Also, the shoreline at Young-Jin beach was extended by about 2.4 7.6 m seaward, and seabed sand was gradually accumulated around areas covered by the geotextile tube.
