LOS ANGELES, Calif.–The Los Angeles City Council will consider banning smoking in “all public areas and common areas where people congregate.”
Councilman Bernard Parks, who proposed the ordinance, said “We need to implement legislation to regulate cigarette smoking by limiting it to specific places where there is no expectation of involuntary contact with people–wherever people congregate or there is an expectation of people being present, (then) smoking should be prohibited.”
“This would be an effort to move smokers and smoking away from people who do not choose to either smoke or inhale second-hand smoke,” he added.
There already are smoking bans in restaurants and other locations in the city. Parks called for a comprehensive and citywide ordinance that would ban smoking in “all public areas and common areas where people congregate, including, but not limited to, indoor and outdoor businesses, hotels, parks, apartment common areas, restaurants and bars, and beaches.”
Parks said smoking is a voluntary addiction and not a right protected by the Constitution, “yet secondhand smoke harms an involuntary population which has a right to clean air and a clean environment and which is protected by many public health laws.”
He said secondhand smoke is the foremost cause of preventable health disease in America. He added that research shows that inhaling secondhand smoke is more harmful than actually smoking, because of the unfiltered nature of the smoke and the fact that it may be cooled by the air.
Parks said the proposed ordinance should be modeled after those of the city of Beverly Hills, Santa Monica and Calabasas.
By Christina Villacorte | City News Service
