by type
Belmont CA, Not Just Another Smoking Ban
Posted September 25th, 2007
BELMONT , CA
The Belmont City Council recently approved one of the toughest anti-smoking law in California, and possibly the nation.
NO SMOKING in indoor and outdoor workplaces,public spaces (parks, sports fields) and the most controversial, a ban on smoking inside condominiums, townhouses and apartments.
Smoking will still be allowed on the city's streets and sidewalks, in single-family homes and in designated outdoor smoking areas.
Belmont is not alone in drafting extreme no-smoking ordinances.
Locally, Calabasas recently ruled secondhand smoke a public nuisance, but Belmont is the first to prohibit people from lighting up inside their own homes within multi-family structures.
Belmont Mayor Coralin Feierbach and council members Dave Warden and Phil Mathewson insist the intention is to protect nonsmokers, not to punish smokers.
"The right of the people to breathe fresh air supersedes the right of the smoker," Feierbach said. Smokers' rights groups have complained the ban curbs individual liberties.
Original article appeared in Daily News
E-mail Will Oremus at woremus@dailynewsgroup.com.
