A Calabasas resident recently contacted the city about an incident at a restaurant in The Commons shopping center where she couldn’t eat outdoors on a nice evening because she didn’t want to be exposed to secondhand smoke.

The council felt it necessary to consider an ordinance against outdoor secondhand smoke.

“(By doing this), we’re saying we promote health, and we’re encouraging folks to learn the implications of selling cigarettes and the damage that it causes,” said Mayor Pro Tem Dennis Washburn.

Among items up for discussion are:

1. The regulation of smoking in multi-family housing, a ruling initiated by the city of West Hollywood. Such regulation is meant to prevent smoke from drifting from one unit to the next. Like a hotel, there would be “smoking” and “nonsmoking” sections of the complexes.

2. No smoking on city streets because cigarette butts are often thrown into the gutters, which then go into the storm drains and cause pollution.

3. How to make tobacco sales in Calabasas undesirable or uneconomic.

4. Regulations that allow the city to pull tobacco licenses if vendors sell to minors. The city could also, under such an ordinance, pull tobacco licenses if vendors encourage cigarette shoplifting by placing cigarettes in the front of a store.

The city may also allow police to ticket motorists who smoke with a child in the vehicle.

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 30th, 2005 at 7:48 am by Radley Balko and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.