LaToya Cantrell to propose a bill banning smoking in NOLA bars (update in OP)

quote:

---

Councilwoman Cantrell says she will introduce legislation to make bars smoke-free. City marks smoke free week.

---

quote:

---

The measure, which amends the city's already-existing smoking ordinances under its Smoke-Free Air Act, prohibits not only cigarettes but all tobacco products, including electronic smoking devices, hookahs and "natural or synthetic marijuana" and "other plant products" in bars, casinos, private clubs, correctional facilities and other "public" areas, including workplaces and school campuses, colleges and specialty schools. District A City Councilwoman Susan Guidry co-sponsored the measure.

Here are several new rules under the measure:

Under the ordinance, smoking also is prohibited within 25 feet of entrances and windows at businesses. It also prohibits smoking in all parks and all public transportation platforms, stations and shelters, as well as within 25 feet of parks and public transportation platforms, stations and shelters, and within 200 feet of entrances, exits or outdoor areas of schools. (It's not applicable to people who live within that boundary or driving through it.)

Smoking also is prohibited at all outdoor property adjacent to buildings owned, leased or operated by the city; all outdoor shopping malls (including parking lots); outdoor arenas; stadiums and amphitheaters (and 25 feet within bleachers and grandstands); outdoor recreational activities and 25 feet from all outdoor public events; and outdoor services lines — including lines (and cars in lines) for bank tellers and parking lot attendants — within 25 feet of the point of service; outdoor common areas of apartment buildings, condos, retirement and nursing homes; and work areas not confined to offices shared by two or more people, like construction sites and work vehicles.

Smoking still is allowed in homes and vehicles, hotel rooms designated as smoking, tobacco businesses, private and semiprivate rooms or apartments in assisted living facilities designated as smoking, and places that manufacture, import, wholesale or distribute tobacco products.

Tobacco retailers can't build within 300 feet of parks, churches, libraries, schools, childcare facilities and similar places for young people. The ordinance grandfathers in existing businesses already within those boundaries.

Businesses impacted by the ordinance must post "no smoking" signs and remove all ashtrays.

Violators of the ordinances are subject to a $100 fine for the first violation, and $200 for a second within 12 months of the first, and $500 for a third. Enforcement is overseen by the city's Department of Health as well as the city's property management employees, the Department of Safety and Permits, Parks and Parkways, NORDC, NOPD, NOFD and code enforcement officers.

The measure is effective 30 days after its adoption.

The 25-page ordinance outlines in its first eight pages the dangers of smoking and secondhand smoke, citing multiple health studies from the U.S. Surgeon General, the National Cancer Institute, Institute of Medicine of the National Academies and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, among others. It outlines that there is "no risk-free level of exposure to second-hand smoke" and that "establishing smoke-free workplaces is the only effective way to ensure that secondhand smoke exposure does not occur in the workplace, because ventilation and other air cleaning technologies cannot completely control exposure of nonsmokers to secondhand smoke."

It also warns of residual tobacco contamination, or "thirdhand" smoke, like smoke residue and buildup on indoor surfaces.

The ordinance — which calls electronic cigarettes, aka e-cigs or vaporizers or vape pens, "unregulated high-tech smoking devices" — also cites the FDA's recent statements regarding e-cigs' "inconsistent or non-existent" "quality control process."

It asserts there is "no legal or constitutional 'right to smoke'" and "business owners have no legal or constitutional right to expose their employees and customers" to secondhand smoke. "On the contrary, employers have a common law duty to provide their workers with a workplace that is not unreasonably dangerous," it says.

---