The Mill Creek Sports Park may become a tobacco-free facility if a proposed ordinance gains City Council approval.
On Tuesday, April 25, the Council debated whether to ban all tobacco products at the sports park and at all city parks and trails. The recommendation regarding the sports park was suggested by the city’s Parks Board.
But five of the seven members of the City Council were opposed to an outright ban on tobacco products throughout the city’s park system, with Mary Kay Voss and Mark Bond having a lively but civil debate on the issue. Mayor Pro-tem Terry Ryan and Councilman Dale Hensley were not at Tuesday’s meeting.
Voss said she had a problem with banning smoking in an open-air environment.
“I think that’s just getting way too big brother,” she said. “I don’t want to be the first city (in Washington) to ban smoking outside.”
City manager Steve Nolen told the Council that staff research indicated that no city in the state has banned smoking in all its public parks, but added that cities like Olympia, Tacoma and Spokane have designated some parks as non-smoking.
Bond, meanwhile, said he contemplated the issue extensively. He said that since smoking is otherwise legal for adults 18 and over, he didn’t want to ban the habit, but when he thought about the sports park and how smoking interferes with some people’s enjoyment of Little League baseball games, for example, he said he became more in favor of the change.
Bond, a Snohomish County Sheriff’s Deputy, also said that a ban gives local police “tools” to deal with disruptive behavior.
“My logic is it’s a tool for police officers and I trust their discretion,” Bond said.
Currently, smoking is banned in the skate park bowl at the sports park, and a sign at the bowl’s gate indicates that’s the case. Police chief Bob Crannell said that sign was “good enough” right now for officers.
Smoking infractions are civil in nature, city attorney Scott Missall said, and fines range from $50 to $250. The city can ban smoking at the sports park in part because of the precedent of state law, which bans smoking at all school property throughout Washington.
Crannell said that no complaints have been received about the state-wide indoor public smoking ban that took effect Dec. 8. Mill Creek police have made enforcement of the voter-approved law a low priority, reacting only on a per-complaint basis.
An ordinance to ban tobacco products at the sports park will be brought back to the Council at a later date.
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