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Outdoor Smoking Banned
Posted: Friday, February 17, 2006
By Michael Moretti
Smoking ban proponents in California have taken the fight outside.
In perhaps the most extensive smoking ban passed in the United States, Calabasas, a small California town in Los Angeles County, has practically eradicated the right to smoke anywhere within its borders. On February 15, the city council passed a sweeping ban that adds outdoor parks, sidewalks and bus stops to the list of places where smoking is prohibited.
Citing studies from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on the possible dangers of secondhand smoke, the Comprehensive Second-Hand Smoke Control Ordinance, as it's titled, reads that the city council seeks "to provide for the public health, safety, and welfare by discouraging the inherently dangerous behavior of tobacco use near non-tobacco users."
As of March 17, smoking will be outlawed in all public places and places of employment, not unlike many smoking bans passed in numerous towns and cities throughout the country, but in Calabasas, smoking will be allowed only in designated "smoker's outposts" or any outdoor public area in which "no non-smoker is present." Clubs, lounges, construction sites and even cigars shops are not exempt from the ban. Basically, the only place people will be able to smoke in the company of a non-smoker is in their home or backyard provided they do not run a "child-care" or "health-care" business there.
Outdoor smoking laws are not uncommon in the Golden State, which led the nation's indoor smoking ban charge. Other California cities have adopted laws establishing smoke-free parks and beaches, including San Francisco, Santa Cruz and Santa Monica.
It will be the responsibility of Calabasas business owners to enforce the ban in their establishments, though members of the general public, so-called "private enforcers," may report breaches of the law. Offenders could be subject to $250 for each violation.
In December 2000, Friendship Heights, a special tax district of about 5,000 residents within the city of Chevy Chase, Maryland, had prohibited smoking on locally maintained sidewalks, parks and other outdoor public grounds. Anyone caught smoking or discarding cigar stubs or cigarette butts was to be fined $100, except for first-time offenders, who were to be let off with a warning. The village council repealed the ban in March 2001.
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