Report: If you like secondhand smoke, you're in the right place
| Wednesday, Jan 14 2009 08:41 PM
Last Updated Friday, Mar 27 2009 01:40 PM
A lack of restrictions on smoking in parks, outdoor dining areas, housing complexes and on sidewalks earned Kern County poor marks in the American Lung Association’s most recent report card on efforts in California to protect the public from secondhand smoke.
Unlike other areas of the state, the report found that no local ordinances exist to restrict smoking in outdoor areas or multi-unit housing.
“We are one of the only, if not the only, metropolitan areas in California without some kind of an outdoor smoking ordinance, such as restricting smoking in parks,” said Sharon Borradori, a spokeswoman for the association’s local office. “We haven’t been able to budge the supervisors on that one.”
Local tobacco advocates were unable in 2007 to convince the Board of Supervisors to expand a state law that prohibits smoking in park playgrounds to include park picnic areas and athletic fields. Most supervisors didn't feel further regulation was necessary.
Some municipalities did earn points for requiring cigarettes vendors to obtain a license. The report gave credit for such laws to unincorporated Kern County, Wasco, Tehachapi, McFarland, Delano and California City for such laws, which all earned overall grades of D.
The rest — Arvin, Bakersfield, Maricopa, Shafter and Taft — received Fs.
