Contact:         
Nancy Braden
Health Communications/PIO
303-239-7137

Many cities and counties in Colorado are working to protect their residents from secondhand smoke exposure by passing ordinances that restrict smoking in outdoor public places, including recreation areas, playgrounds, youth athletic fields and bus shelters. The City of Wheat Ridge is currently considering such an ordinance based on the urging of concerned residents, business owners, healthcare providers and Jefferson County Public Health (JCPH).

Public Health officials remind residents that strong local smoke-free ordinances limit exposure to secondhand smoke, a known carcinogen and leading cause of preventable death and disease. Even brief exposure in outdoor settings to secondhand smoke has been shown to have negative health effects. These include increased risk of heart attack and stroke and the triggering of asthma and other respiratory ailments. Furthermore limiting smoking in public settings helps to de-normalize tobacco use, prevent youth initiation and, may reduce triggers to light up for those trying to quit.

Opponents of strong local smoke-free laws may be misguided in their focus on enforcement issues. Comprehensive smoke-free public place ordinances are designed to be self-enforcing and do not typically require significant additional police involvement or the issuing of citations. JCPH’s Tobacco Prevention Initiative is the first to respond to compliance complaints in many Jefferson County jurisdictions. Working with business owners and their employees is generally sufficient to remedy compliance complaints. Only when repeated, intentional non-compliance occurs, does law enforcement need to be involved.

Communities which protect their citizens from secondhand smoke in public places do not intend for police officers to spend their time searching for people smoking in restricted areas. Rather, they know that through education and signage, residents will become aware of the smoking restrictions and most individuals who smoke will obey the law. If someone does smoke in a restricted area, other people are likely to ask that individual to stop and inform him/her of the smoking restrictions. This approach has been used successfully in communities across the nation and the world.

The current draft of Wheat Ridge’s smoke-free ordinance would prohibit smoking in indoor public places and the following outdoor public places: city-owned parks, trails and recreational areas; 25 feet from the entrance ways of public places; bus/transit shelters; dining/seating areas adjacent to bars and restaurants; and, sidewalks around Exempla Lutheran Medical Center (not all public sidewalks, but the sidewalks most utilized by those seeking medical care.) Similar provisions already exist in local ordinances across Colorado. Tobacco prevention coalition members in Wheat Ridge and the Tobacco Prevention Initiative took the best protective provisions from these ordinances and put them in a list of nine recommendations for Council to consider. The current draft ordinance contains many of these recommended provisions which Council will review before a final version is ready for first reading, which is expected in a few months.

What the Council is considering is not new to Colorado communities. Overall, more than 50 jurisdictions have further protected the health of workers and their residents by passing local laws that exceed the provisions of the State’s Clean Indoor Air Act.  The Act, passed in 2006 prohibits smoking in most indoor workplaces, but allows several workplace exemptions and doesn’t address outdoor work areas or public places.  More than  14 Colorado communities have already included substantial smoke-free  outdoor public place provisions in their laws, including 4 which have bus shelter provisions and 2 cities that have sidewalk provisions covering at least 14 hospitals. The draft ordinance in Wheat Ridge protects youth and other vulnerable populations in several outdoor public places and removes exemptions that continue to allow hundreds of workers to be exposed to second hand smoke during their working hours and Cigar bars, tobacco businesses and businesses with three or fewer employees would be protected, just as most other Colorado workers are.

Second hand smoke causes serious disease in non-smokers and more than 50,000 deaths per year across the U.S. Strong local smoke-free laws protect citizens from second-hand smoke, and that’s good for communities and good for health.