Council to consider smoking ban

Move would affect city parks, buildings

Avon Lake City Council will introduce legislation in the coming weeks to prohibit smoking in city parks and buildings.

The Council Safety Committee gave unanimous approval April 18 to begin drafting two pieces of legislation, said Ward 4 Councilman David Kos.

Kos, who chairs the Council Safety Committee, reported to Council on April 23 the committee would begin working to write the legislation, but stopped short of setting a firm timeline.

“Both of those items again have been put to the drafting stage, and I hope to have a copy of those to bring to a future CCM (Collective Committee Meeting),” he said.

The first piece of legislation would prohibit smoking in city parks, beaches and ball fields.

City streets and sidewalks would be excluded from the ordinance.

A second ordinance would prohibit smoking and smoking related products at all city buildings.

The legislation would follow a December 2017 update to the city’s current smoking policies, which added cigars, pipes, bidis, clove cigarettes, spit tobacco and electronic cigarettes to the list of prohibited products in city buildings.

If Council adopts the legislation, Avon Lake would become the second Lorain County municipality, behind Oberlin, to take action with an ordinance.

According to the Lorain County General Health District, the city of North Ridgeville, most school districts and Lorain’s Lakeview Park maintain tobacco free policies. A November 2017 work session a presentation by Erin Murphy, a program manager with the District’s Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Department, indicated Ohio ranks 49th in children exposed to secondhand smoke and 43rd in the percentage of adult smokers.