Calabasas, CA smoking ban

Calabasas, CA has passed a smoking ban that would prohibit some people from smoking on their own property if their property is next to a ‘public area’. Violators could be charged with a misdemeanor and fined $500.

One former smoker interviewed on CNN said she now finds smoking offensive, and that she’d ‘have to move’ if the ban had not been made. A lifelong non-smoker said she feels the ban is wrong.

What do you think?

What’s the definition of “public area” and “next to”? What sort of places will actually come under the ban?

Linkety link.

Bolding mine.

From here:

CNN obviously keeps their stories short, and I posted before I found the ordinance. Now that I’ve skimmed it, it does say that people can smoke on their own property. However Sec 8.12.050 says that there must be ‘reasonable distance’ (defined as 20 feet) between a smoker and an objecting non-smoker. So if I’m reading it correctly, a person may not stand on his own property within 20 feet of a sidewalk if there is an objecting person there.

Not a good piece of drafting - “outdoor area”, the critical term in the critical paragraph (8.12.040 (a) (4)) isn’t defined in the “definitions” section. I predict conflict over this term if any cases come to court.

Apart from that - it’s certainly draconian, and it’s not the sort of law that I would vote for, but I wouldn’t (as a smoker) consider it unreasonable to live with. It’s common politeness not to smoke if there’s someone in the area who objects; I can’t say that I approve wholeheartedly of laws being necessary to enforce common politeness, but that’s human nature for you…

Does the ordinance say how the smoker should behave if he a non-smoker enters his his 20 foot radius? I’m picturing Monty Pythonesque encounters here.

I think smokers should be courteous and attempt to limit the contact between their smoke and non-smokers, and moving 20 feet away from a non-smoker seems fine on that level. I’ve also seen plenty of non-smokers knowingly walk right through a designated smoking area, when there were plenty of alternate (and no longer or more troublesome) paths they could have chosen. I don’t really think the latter have any room to bitch, and that’s where I think this ban fails.