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L.A. TO CRIMINALIZE SMOKING? |
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Page 1 of 2  Plus: City Councilman wants to ban smoking almost everywhere!
Los Angeles, August 15 – If you thought smoking bans have gone too far, you haven’t seen anything yet.
Los Angeles City Councilman Bernard Parks, the chief of police in the city from 1997-2002, introduced two items last Friday, August 8, with the intention of eliminating smoking in both the city (3.85 million residents) and in Los Angeles County (9.95 million):
He introduced a motion (No. 08-2123) that asks “the City Attorney be requested to prepare and present an ordinance to enact a second-hand smoking law effective throughout the City which would limit public exposure to secondhand smoke 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, bars, and beaches.”
He introduced a resolution (No. 08-0002-S130) that asks “Be it Resolved, with the concurrence of the Mayor, that by the adoption of this Resolution, the City of Los Angeles hereby URGES the County of Los Angeles to enact a second-hand smoking law effective throughout the County which would limit public exposure to secondhand smoke in all public areas where people congregate including, but not limited to indoor and outdoor businesses, hotels, parks, apartment common areas, restaurants and bars, and beaches.”
What’s the impact of this? In the city of Los Angeles, it could mean for cigarette, cigar and pipe smokers that:
Smoking would be prohibited in all indoor businesses, including smokeshops, as is the case now in the state of Washington and in Kansas City. It would certainly mean the demise of many cigar stores in the area.
Smoking would be prohibited in all parks, which will certainly include golf courses; that’s right, no more smoking on golf courses located in the city of Los Angeles, whether public or private!
Smoking would be banned in the common areas of apartment buildings, raising the specter of police knocking on your door – anytime of the day or night – to ask if you’ve been smoking in the hallway. The call will have been placed by your non-smoking neighbor, telling the police you’ve broken the law . . . whether you have or not.
Parks is asking for a ban on smoking anywhere people congregate. Does that mean arresting or citing someone for smoking on a city street? Certainly it has to apply on street corners . . . in parking lots . . . near buildings . . . anywhere some officer wants to arrest or cite you.
Make no mistake; if an ordinance is proposed and adopted, the penalties will either be an infraction – resulting in a citation, similar to a traffic ticket – or a misdemeanor, which require an arrest and carry penalties including fines or possibly even jail time.
Our best estimates are that a City ordinance of the type that Parks is requesting will affect about 384,000 City residents and up to 989,000 in the County, depending on what incorporated cities inside the County do.
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