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Outdoor Bans
Throughout the United States, hundreds of local governments have enacted smokefree air legislation for outdoor areas, especially recreational facilities like parks, playgrounds, and beaches, as well as school grounds and near buildings. Outdoor smoking concentrations can be as high as indoor concentrations where smoking could take place.
Click here to read our white paper supporting outdoor smoking bans which help:
- Protect
people, especially children who congregate at parks, playgrounds and
beaches, from secondhand smoke. Studies show that concentrations of
secondhand smoke, equivalent to indoors, can exist outside.
- Set a
standard that promotes public health by creating healthful environments
for outdoor exercise and activities, and helps to normalize smokefree
environments.
- Eliminate
the concern of cigarette butts that are ingested by children and animals.
- Reduce
litter and the increased costs for a municipality and the State for
clean-up efforts.
- Reduce
accidental fires caused by discarded cigarette butts in forests and
parks.
- Improve
oceanic and marine life, due to reduced amount of butts flowing into
lakes, bays, and ocean.
- Facilitate
the preservation of land and water for conservation and recreational
purposes.
Click here to see supporting documentation.
Creating outdoor smokefree environments is supported by current New Jersey legislation, regulations, and policies.
- The 2006 New Jersey Smoke-Free Air Act
(NJSFAA) prohibits smoking outdoors on all public and private K-12 school
grounds (NJAC 8:6-7.1 and 2) and at
an exterior area if smoking in the exterior area results in migration,
seepage, or recirculation of smoke to an indoor public place or a workplace
at which smoking is prohibited (NJAC 8:6-2.3a and 2.3b)
- A regulation that bans smoking in all
resource family homes (foster homes, adoptive homes, family friend homes
and relative care homes), cars that transport a resource family child,
and outdoors when a resource family child is present. N.J.A.C. 10:122C-7.2(a)(3)
was adopted by the Department of Human Services on December 19, 2005,
effective February 6, 2006 (Manual
of Requirements for Resource Family Parents).
- 107 municipalities and 7 counties
that passed 125 outdoor bans that eliminate or restrict smoking in parks,
playgrounds, recreational fields, swimming pools, and beaches.
Three bills have been introduced in the NJ Senate and will be heard by
the Senate Health Committee for the 2010 legislative session on 2/18.
These bills together would ban smoking in our state, county and local
parks, playgrounds, beaches and other recreational facilities.
Public Support
Public support
is growing for outdoor bans. Click
here to read a letter to the editor supporting an outdoor smoking
ban at the Somerville, NJ car show.
On a voluntary basis hundreds of private decision makers have instituted smokefree outdoor policies for sites within their authority, including company grounds, pools, sports stadiums, etc., under the authority of NJSA 40:48-1 and 2, New Jersey property owners have the right to make outdoor areas smokefree. This law states smoking or carrying lighted tobacco may be prohibited by the owner or person responsible for operating any public place or by municipal ordinance under the authority of NJSA 40:48-1 and 2. Conspicuous posting of adequate notice of the prohibition is required.
Outdoor restrictions instituted voluntarily in New Jersey include:
Sports Facilities: The Meadowlands Sports Complex and all other professional stadiums are smokefree in the seating areas.
College Campuses: Raritan Valley, Bergen County, and Morris County colleges are completely smokefree. Middlesex Cunty, Brookdale Community, and Sussex County colleges have smoking-restricted campuses. Ramapo College prohibits smoking 25 feet from the entrance to any campus buliding.
Hospital campuses: There are more than 90 tobacco-free hospital campuses in NJ.
updated June 1, 2010
This information is created by the Tobacco Control Policy and Legal Resource Center of New Jersey GASP, which provides expert information, guidance, and technical assistance about policy, legislation, and litigation, especially regarding smokefree air. Major funding for this service is provided by the New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services (NJ DHSS).The information presented on this website is not intended as, nor to be construed, or used, as legal advice, and should not be used to replace the advice of your legal counsel.