City Parks in Seattle Soon To Be Smoke Free

Keeping in mind the hazards smoking can cause to a non-smoker, the Seattle Parks Department is pressing to ban all cigarettes, cigars, hookahs, lighted pipes and other tobacco products from every nook and corner of the city’s parks system. The park system covers more than 5,000 acres and people visit parks for recreation. Since people who are smoking diminish others’ ability to enjoy healthful outdoor recreation, the officials have come up with the ban.

"Smoking is incongruous with our values of healthy parks and healthy people,” said Christopher Williams, Acting Parks Superintendent. “We know the dangers of second-hand smoke, particularly for those with asthma and allergies, and we know that cigarette litter is abundant and harmful to our environment, especially for the wildlife that inhabit it. This ban just makes sense for our community. It is the right thing to do for Seattle,” Seattle Mayor Ed Murray said in a statement.

Though, the new proposed ban makes no specific reference to marijuana, it does, define ’smoke’ and ’smoking’ as ’the carrying, holding, or smoking of any kind of lighted pipe, cigar, cigarette or any other smoking equipment’.

“We are very excited to see Seattle Parks and Recreation taking this step: Actions like this continue the steady progress toward de-normalizing smoking and tobacco use, making outdoor spaces a safer environment for impressionable youth and anyone who enjoys breathing clean, healthy air,” said Matt DeGooyer, executive director of the Lung Association, Washington.

New York City, Boston, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago and Philadelphia. Are the other cities that ban smoking in parks.

Source-Medindia