The case for tougher smoking laws in Sonoma
Expand protection from secondhand smoke in outdoor place for everyone who lives, works and plays in Sonoma. Protect multi-family housing residents, icing children, from unhealthy exposure to secondhand smoke.
Sonoma residents asked and the Council listened. During the past 31 months, the Sonoma Council has heard extensive requests from citizens and public health organizations about the need to extend protections to residents from the use of tobacco and electronic smoking devices.
A yes vote on Measure W will update Sonoma’s 24-year-old smoking ordinance to provide scientifically proven protections. The U.S. Surgeon General concluded in 2006 that there is no risk-free level of secondhand smoke exposure; even brief exposure can be harmful to health. Sonoma’s 1992 ordinance does not address the health and safety dangers proven during the pt two-and-a-half-decades.
Recent research has shown that aerosols from electronic smoking devices pose potential health risks, even to non-users. Sonoma residents are seeing another generation of youth get addicted to nicotine through tobacco and electronic cigarettes, which has the potential to reverse decades of progress in reducing teen smoking.
Vote yes on Measure W to amend Chapter 7.24 to expand secondhand smoke and related protections to all public places, multi-family residences, hotels and motels, common areas, outdoor recreational areas and parks, outdoor public places and within 25 feet of any area where smoking is prohibited.
Vote yes on Measure W to protect Sonoma residents, businesses and workers, visitors and most importantly, our children.
Laurie Gallian, Mayor of Sonoma
David Donnelley
Thomas Rouse
Dr. Brian Sebastian
Lori Bremner
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In 2011, there were an estimated 34 million occupied multi-unit buildings, ranging from 2 to >50 units; of these, 77% were rented, the remainder were owned, and the median year of construction was 1974 (US Census, 2011a). Using national and state representative data from 2009, King et al. (2012) estimated that 25.8% of U.S. residents, or 79.2 million persons, live in multi-unit housing (ranging from 10.1% in West Virginia to 51.7% in New York), 47.6% are male, and 53.3% are aged 25–64 years. Of these, an estimated 79%, have smoke-free home rules. Among residents with smoke-free home rules (62.7 million), an estimated 44% to 46.2%, or 27.6–28.9 million have experienced secondhand smoke infiltration in their apartments each year, ranging from 26,000 in Wyoming to 4.9 million in California (King et al., 2012). In a national random survey of U.S. multi-unit housing residents (n = 418), Licht et al. (2012) reported that, among all respondents, 56% supported smoke-free building implementation. Smoke from smokers’ units cannot be contained due to inter-unit pressure differences. The only viable alternative is a smoke-free building.