Ted Schiele is disappointed each time he enters the Tompkins County Human Services building and sees a person smoking outside the door, leaning against the sign “Tobacco Free” zone.

Schiele is a coordinator of Tobacco-Free Tompkins, which dispense the “T-Free” signs to any government, business or lessor who wants them. In majority cases they work. Private property owners implement their own rules and courteous smokers observe the signs, he said. Ithaca’s so long discussed outdoor smoking regulations came into effect Aug. 1.

According to the law anyone who is smoking in a smoke-free zone can be asked by a police officer to move away or put away the tobacco product. In case the smoker refuses, a first-offense ticket will constitute $75, a second $150 and $250 the third one.

The given changes will not hold the motivated smoker outside the services building, as it only comprises 25 feet around buildings and schools. But it for sure will prevent smoking in various places, as for example bus-stops, playing fields, city parks, and around all conservancy areas.

The council began to examine the law forbidding smoking in particular zones in 2007. That year the peer-reviewed research by Stanford University showed that “a person can be exposed to the same level of second-hand smoke outside and inside the building”, Alderman Eric Rosario stated. “That was a key player”.

In 2008 Rosario became the member of Common Council and very soon started to work with other council members on the law. As stated the Surgeon General “there is no safe level of exposure to second-hand smoke and that the most efficient method to limit this exposure is to create smoke-free zones”.

The EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) named second-hand smoke as a “known human carcinogen,” as cigarette smoke comprises more than 100 toxic substances.

Some members of the Common Council proposed to ban smoking on all public property, including road and sidewalks. But Rosario and his colleagues tried to achieve a balance that would be protective of public health and not increasing the number of people smoking indoors.

Smoking was also prohibited in the center of the Commons, but allowed on the edges of all three main entrances. Red signs painted on the ground mark the border showing that this is a smoke-free zone.

According to data provided by the State Department of Health, there are more than 180 communities in New York that adopted the law prohibiting tobacco use at parks and municipal areas.

Ithaca wanted to be the first municipality in New York to adopt outdoor smoking rules, but Lansing did it earlier. According to survey realized by Schiele, 93.3 % of respondents think that smoking should be prohibited or restricted to particular zones at public playgrounds, 85.4 % think the same about public parks, and 81.7 % support smoking restrictions at public outdoor events.

By Sara Norton, Staff Writer. Copyright © 2010 Cigarette-Store.org. All rights reserved.