Portland May Prohibit Smoking in Parks
The city is considering a sweeping prohibition on outdoor tobacco smoking that would include the city’s parks and many of its open places and squares, hardly limiting where smokers can smoke outdoors. The new proposal is currently in incarceration because the city lacks a formal definition of “open area.” But the chair of the City Council committee that has drawn up the ban argued that issue will be exceeded later this month and the proposal is expected to go before the full council in October.
Smokers declared that they are rapidly running out of places where they can smoke tobacco, but proposers of the ban explained that the health effects of secondhand smoke are so great that it makes sensation to force where smoking tobacco is permitted.
Jay Young added that he’s a good example of someone with reduced options for where to smoke cigarettes. His apartment in Westbrook is in a smoke-free building. Most of the places he goes are public areas where smoking is not permitted And approximately all the bars and restaurants in the state are smoke-free.
So his pint of view on a proposal to prohibit smoking in city-owned parks and open places in Portland is not surprising.
The proposal was expected to be taken up by the Portland City Council on Wednesday but was instead referred back to the Public Safety Committee because of the definition problem.
But once that detail is resolved, committee chairman Ed Suslovic argued the city’s direction is clear.
“I feel like the city has already said that the right to breathe clean air cuts smokers’ rights,” Suslovic added. “In the public opinion battle, the tobacco smokers are not winning.”
Portland is far from alone in seeking to control where smoking is permitted, both indoors and outdoors.
Most states have ordinances which banned smoking in all public buildings and 625 communities have regulations banning smoking tobacco in parks.
“It’s of course a growing trend,” concluded Cynthia Howard, executive director of Americans for Non-smokers’ Rights, which advocates for tougher regulations on where smokers can lighting up.