8.04.020 Findings and purpose.
A. Findings. The City Council of the City of Sebastopol does hereby find that:
1. Tobacco use causes death and disease and continues to be an urgent public health challenge, as evidenced by the following:
a. Tobacco-related illness is the leading cause of preventable death in the United States, accounting for about 443,000 deaths each year; and
b. Scientific studies have concluded that tobacco use can cause chronic lung disease, coronary heart disease, and stroke, in addition to cancer of the lungs, larynx, esophagus, and mouth; and
c. Some of the most common types of cancers including stomach, liver, uterine cervix, and kidney are related to tobacco use; and
2. Secondhand smoke has been repeatedly identified as a health hazard, as evidenced by the following:
a. The U.S. Surgeon General concluded that there is no risk-free level of exposure to secondhand smoke; and
b. The California Air Resources Board placed secondhand smoke in the same category as the most toxic automotive and industrial air pollutants by categorizing it as a toxic air contaminant for which there is no safe level of exposure; and
c. The California Environmental Protection Agency included secondhand smoke on the Proposition 65 list of chemicals known to the State of California to cause cancer, birth defects, and other reproductive harm; and
3. Exposure to secondhand smoke causes death and disease, as evidenced by the following:
a. Secondhand smoke is responsible for as many as 73,000 deaths among nonsmokers each year in the United States; and
b. Exposure to secondhand smoke increases the risk of coronary heart disease by approximately 30 percent; and
c. Secondhand smoke exposure causes lower respiratory tract infections, such as pneumonia and bronchitis, in as many as 300,000 children in the United States under the age of 18 months each year and exacerbates childhood asthma; and
4. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration conducted laboratory analysis of electronic cigarette samples and found they contained carcinogens and toxic chemicals to which users and bystanders could potentially be exposed; and
5. Tobacco use and exposure to secondhand smoke impose great social and economic costs, as evidenced by the following:
a. The total annual economic burden of smoking in the United States is $193 billion; and
b. From 2001 to 2004, the average annual health care expenditures attributable to smoking were approximately $96 billion; and
c. The medical and other costs to nonsmokers due to exposure to secondhand smoke were estimated at over $10 billion per year in the United States in 2005; and
d. The total annual cost of smoking in California was estimated at $475.00 per resident or $3,331 per smoker per year, for a total of nearly $15.8 billion in smoking-related costs in 1999 alone; and
e. California’s Tobacco Control Program saved the State and its residents $86 billion in health care expenditures between the year of its inception, 1989, and 2004, with savings growing yearly; and
6. Exposure to secondhand smoke anywhere has negative health impacts, and exposure to secondhand smoke does occur at significant levels outdoors, as evidenced by the following:
a. Levels of secondhand smoke exposure outdoors can reach levels attained indoors depending on direction and amount of wind and number and proximity of smokers; and
b. Irritation from secondhand smoke begins at levels as low as four micrograms per cubic meter, and in some outdoor situations this level can be found as far away as 13 feet from the burning cigarette; and
c. To be completely free from exposure to secondhand smoke in outdoor places, a person may have to move nearly 25 feet away from the source of the smoke, about the width of a two-lane road; and
7. Smoking is the primary cause of fire-related injuries and deaths in the home, as evidenced by the following:
a. Cigarettes, cigars, pipes and other smoking materials are the leading cause of fire deaths in the United States, causing an estimated 142,900 smoking-related fires, 780 deaths, 1,600 injuries, and $606 million in direct property damage in 2006; and
b. One in four fatalities from home fires caused by smoking is not the smoker whose cigarette started the fire, and 25 percent of those deaths were of neighbors or friends of the smoker; and
c. Smoking in a residence where long-term oxygen therapy takes place is very dangerous as oxygen is a fire accelerant, and 27 percent of fatalities due to smoking during long-term oxygen therapy occurred in multifamily dwellings; and
d. The United States Fire Administration recommends that people smoke outdoors; and
8. Nonsmokers who live in multi-unit dwellings can be exposed to neighbors’ secondhand smoke, as evidenced by the following:
a. Secondhand smoke can seep under doorways and through wall cracks; and
b. Persons living in apartments near smokers can be exposed to elevated pollution levels for 24 hours a day, and at times, the particulate matter exposure can exceed the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s 24-hour health-based standard; and
c. The Surgeon General has concluded that eliminating smoking in indoor spaces is the only way to fully protect nonsmokers from secondhand smoke exposure and that separating smokers from nonsmokers, cleaning the air, and ventilating buildings cannot completely prevent secondhand smoke exposure; and
9. Most Californians do not smoke and a majority favor limitations on smoking in multi-unit residences, as evidenced by the following:
a. Sixty-nine percent of Californians surveyed favor limiting smoking in outdoor common areas of apartment buildings and 78 percent support laws that create nonsmoking units; and
b. Sixty-two percent of California renters feel that there is a need for laws to limit smoking in apartments; and
10. A local ordinance that authorizes residential rental agreements to include a prohibition on smoking of tobacco products within rental units is not prohibited by California law; and
11. Creating smoke-free areas helps protect the health of the 86.7 percent of Californians who are nonsmokers; and
12. State law prohibits smoking within 25 feet of playgrounds and tot lots and expressly authorizes local communities to enact additional restrictions, and State law prohibits smoking within 20 feet of entryways and operable windows of government buildings; and
13. Cigarette butts are a major and persistent source of litter, as evidenced by the following:
a. It is estimated that over two billion cigarette butts are discarded every day worldwide, and that Americans alone discard more than 175 million pounds of cigarette butts every year; and
b. Cigarette butts are often cast onto sidewalks and streets, and frequently end up in storm drains that flow into streams, rivers, bays, lagoons and ultimately the ocean; and
c. Cigarette filters, made of plastic cellulose acetate, take approximately 15 years to decompose; and
14. There is no Constitutional right to smoke.
B. Purpose. It is the intent of the City Council to provide for the public health, safety and welfare by discouraging the inherently dangerous behavior of smoking near nonsmokers; by protecting the public from exposure to secondhand smoke where they live work, and play; by reducing the potential for children to wrongly associate smoking with a healthy lifestyle; by protecting the public from smoking and tobacco-related litter and pollution; and by affirming and promoting the healthy atmosphere of the City’s public spaces.