St Clair resident Melissa Duerden plays with her
one-year-old son Maddix Smith at the St Clair Beach reserve
playground yesterday. Ms Duerden said she would welcome a
policy making all of Dunedin's public spaces smokefree.
Smokefree Otago will recommend such a policy in a report to
the DCC this month. Photo by James Boucher.
Dunedin anti-smoking groups are set to recommend the
Dunedin City Council adopt a smokefree policy for public spaces
throughout the city.
Public Health South health promotion adviser Dave Gibbs said
Smokefree Otago would submit a report with recommendations to
the DCC Community Development Committee later this month
regarding smokefree outdoor areas and events.
Recommendations would include the development and
implementation of a smokefree public places educational
policy covering all council-administered parks, reserves,
playgrounds, sports fields and swimming pools, as well as the
development and implementation of a smokefree policy for all
family-oriented events supported by the DCC, Mr Gibbs said.
The DCC has no city-wide policy relating to smoking in
outdoor public places.
Mr Gibbs said the report would follow Public Health South
submissions recently made to the DCC draft annual plan.
"Public Health South made submissions on a range of issues in
the draft annual plan, including smokefree initiatives," Mr
Gibbs said.
"We're still waiting to hear back from the council on
those while the Smokefree coalition is in the process of
submitting a report later this month."DCC community development
committee team leader Rebecca Parata said decisions about
Public Health South's previous submissions would not be made
until the end of the month.
"Public Health South has twice made [smoking-related]
submissions to the council, but neither time was any work
requested.
Annual plan hearings were only held last week, with
deliberations this week, but the council won't make decisions
until the May 31 meeting and those won't be finalised until
June," Ms Parata said.
Mr Gibbs said many territorial authorities in New Zealand had
implemented smokefree policies covering outdoor public
places.
Last June, the Christchurch City Council approved a policy
making all parks and reserves, including playgrounds and
sports fields, as well as council-administered events in
Christchurch and Banks Peninsula smokefree.
Adopting smokefree policies for public spaces was
"educational, not punitive", Mr Gibbs said.
"We know from research that increased smokefree environments
contribute towards fewer young people beginning to smoke -
the less they see smoking, the less normal it seems."
Smokefree outdoor public places would reduce children and
young people's exposure to smoking and better reflect actual
smoking rates, Mr Gibbs said.
Signage and publicity were important ways of encouraging the
community to maintain a clean, healthy environment in areas
used by young people, he said.
"Experience with smokefree outdoor public places has shown
that smokers are generally very considerate, and will smoke
outside smokefree areas.
"If someone does light up in a smokefree area, other users of
that space will often ask them to step outside the area to
smoke."
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