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Politics & Government

City Council Weighs Smoking Ban at City Parks

Council action could mean the end of smoking at Allen Pond.

Grabbing a quick smoke outside a City Hall doorway or lighting up at Allen Pond could be prohibited if the Bowie City Council approves smoking restrictions on city property.

City Manager David Deutsch originally outlined a proposal Monday night to ban smoking within 100 feet of any city building, playground or ballfield.

But the City Council took it a step further, unanimously supporting a motion to expand the proposal to include city parks.

The city’s indoor facilities are already smoke-free, but the policy would apply to outdoor space, including the city’s 1,100 acres of parkland.

“We need to recognize that adopting this policy would automatically apply to all the events that occur in the parks whether they be concerts or the Fourth of July,” said Mayor G. Frederick Robinson.

Robinson said the council may endorse a ban on smoking on all city property.

"Obviously smoking is a health hazard and second-hand smoke is hazardous to other people,"  Robinson said.

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The council could consider the proposal at the next meeting on March 21, Deutsch said, after the city attorney has had an opportunity to determine the best way to enact such a policy.

Some issues include how it would be enforced and what penalties, if any, would be assessed.

In a memo to the city council, Deutsch wrote the city is “committed to making a healthy environment for all employees and facility users.”

Deutsch said the goal was not only to improve employees' health but to save money, citing the higher costs of insuring smokers.  The city paid more than $1.9 million for employee health insurance last year, according to Deutsch.

The city would help employees quit with a wellness plan which would include a smoking cessation program, Deutsch said. Of the city’s 325 employees, a small minority are smokers, Deutsch said. Deutsch estimated that at most 12 people who work at City Hall are smokers. However, the number of smokers among the total city workforce is higher, Deutsch said.

“The policy is intended to encourage healthy behavior and protect the health of employees and visitors rather than taking a punitive approach. We are trying to be positive,” Deutsch said.

One longtime Bowie resident and well-known anti-smoking activist testified Monday in support of restrictions on public smoking, sharing an negative experience he had with a cigar smoker at an Allen Pond concert.

The smoke, he said, was bothering everyone but the smoker.

“That’s the kind of thing we should not have to put up with,” said John O’Hara.

O’Hara is the founder of the group Bowie Group Against Smoker’s Pollution or GASP, which later became Maryland GASP.

The Tulip Grove resident said he first became motivated to do something about smoking in 1975 after an experience at a local drug store. His infant daughter, in his arms at the time, began to cry after a cloud of someone's cigar smoke enveloped her.

“In those days you smoked everywhere,” O’Hara said. “So I went home and told my wife, I’m going to start a group.”

O’Hara estimated that he has written hundreds of letters to newspapers about smoking and he has testified in Annapolis on legislation related to tobacco four times this year alone.

O’Hara said great strides have been to protect people from the dangers of second-hand smoke with the evolution from smoke-free buildings to bans on public smoking in some places.

“My granddaughter hardly knows what an ashtray is. Isn’t that a wonderful thing,” O’Hara said.

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CORRECTION: Deutsch said there are a maximum of 12 smokers who work at City Hall.  The figure does not include the city employees who smoke but do not work at City Hall.

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