I would like to express my views on smoking in our public parks. This refers to all types of tobacco use in all of our parks.
It has been proven that secondhand smoke is as damaging or more so than smoking itself.
Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease is the fourth largest killer in the USA! This, for the most part, is brought on by smoking or inhaling secondhand smoke. As for snuff, mouth and tongue cancer are also caused by this.
Our city parks are a great asset to our All America City. They are very well maintained and very well kept. I am sure many employee hours go into cleaning up cigarette butts and empty cigarette packages from our parks, trying to keep our parks looking great, as they do a very good job.
There is nothing worse than to have your family at a park to have a good time and maybe a barbecue, and have a group of smokers at the next table or just hanging out or maybe having a barbecue of their own, then with their secondhand smoke coming your way from every puff for our children to inhale, as well as the adults.
This is my opinion, but for the health of most all of our citizens, especially our children, I think smoking in all of our city parks should be banned!
According to polls taken by KCOY and the Santa Barbara Tobacco Program, about 87 percent of our citizens do not smoke, so why should we cater to the 13 percent who do? As I understand it, the city has tobacco money that must be spent to help prevent smoking in Santa Maria or it needs to be paid back.
I know of at least one person on the City Council who has a heart problem. Smoking also causes heart problems. So for everyone’s wellbeing, please no smoking in our city parks!
It is banned in all public buildings and so many feet from their doorways, so why not the parks?
Think of yourself, your children, and grandchildren!
This article appears in Feb 5-12, 2009.
