ROCKLAND — Allowing for individual freedoms, advocating for the health of nonsmokers, protecting the poor, and speaking for the voiceless.

Rockland City Council must weigh the pros and cons of introducing No Smoking signs to its public parks. The addition of those signs would entail creating law enforcement policies that would not include a monetary fee, a three-month ban from the area of the infraction, or an outright ban from all city parks.

According to Sarah Austin, chair of Parks and Rec Committee, who introduced Chapter 13, Article V – Parks and Rec Facilities; Smoking Prohibited during the Monday, Aug. 5, agenda-setting meeting, 150 municipalities nationwide have already implemented such a ban. Many municipalities faced legal challenges, yet only a few were turned down on legal grounds.

“There’s a broad understanding about health risks of smoking, and what’s being considered does not prohibit anyone from making personal choices about using tobacco or other products,” Austin said. “But it is well in the scope of municipalities to regulate where and how they can be used in public places.”

During the Aug. 5 meeting, YMCA representative Molly Stone told Council that municipalities need to take a stand for public health.

But, as Councilor Valli Geiger noted, restrictions on smoking often turns into a class issue. 

“The poor have much higher rates of smoking than other people,” she said. “Smoking is very much connected with adverse childhood events and childhood trauma. And that nicotine is an anti-anxiety, anti-depressant, and a management tool. It kills you in the end, but short term, it definitely has an effect.”

If parents are banned from a park or the beach, does that mean their children can no longer go to the park or the beach? 

“Does it mean that we shut out a whole bunch of our children from our recreational spots?” she said.

During the August 12 regular Council meeting, Austin cited a 2004 Minnesota survey of City and County park directors that showed noticeable benefits of the no-smoking policy.  Fifty-eight percent reported less litter, 74% reported no problems with policy violations, which contrasted with the park directors who did not have a nonsmoking policy, and 71% reported an increase in park usage after enacting a policy.

Austin quoted a 2014 Surgeon General’s report stating, “The primary purpose of laws and policies on second-hand smoke is to protect nonsmokers from exposures from secondhand smoke. However, a growing body of evidence shows that these policies have the additional benefit of lowering the smoking rates among youth and young adults.” 

Austin said that the reduction in youth smoking was attributed to less modeling of smoking behavior, largely in less places where young adults could be smoking unsupervised.

A policy – a No Smoking sign – gives nonsmokers some credence when they ask smokers to take their cigarettes elsewhere, according to Stone.

“Say you are a smoker and somebody asks you to stop, you might not stop,” she said. “But if there is a sign there that says no smoking allowed, you might say respectively, ‘OK, I’ll go over there,’ or I’ll put it out.’ It empowers the citizens.”

Currently, enforcement reads: 

Any person in violation of this ordinance for the first time within any one-year period shall be issued a warning. Any person in violation of this ordinance for the second time within any one-year period shall be ordered to leave the premises and not to re-enter for a period of six months. Any person in violation of this ordinance for the third time within any one-year period shall be ordered to leave the premises and not to re-enter for a period of one year. Any person who remains on the premises in defiance of an order to leave or who enters the premises in defiance of an order not to re-enter may be charged with criminal trespass.

During the Aug. 12 meeting, Councilor Amelia Magjik suggested an amending the ordinance to read: Any person in violation of this ordinance for the first time shall be issued a warning. And, any person who remains on the premises in defiance of an order to leave, or who enters the premises in defiance of an order not to reenter may be charged with criminal trespass. 

“I’m proposing this amendment because I hear what people are saying,” said Councilor Amelia Magjik. “If you don’t let homeless people sleep in parks, where are they going to be sleeping. I don’t want to be banning people from parks. But if you are smoking in parks, and a law enforcement officer says to you, ‘you can’t do that here, please leave the park,’ then you are going to have to do that. And then, you can come back when you are done.”

However, the amendment change was postponed until the City can clarify some questions with the police department and Parks and Rec Committee.

The ordinance will return to the City Council agenda for the Monday, Sept. 9 meeting.  A workshop for a discussion of penalties is also being considered.

Reach Sarah Thompson at news@penbaypilot.com