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San Rafael’s Smoking Ban
Reuters reported earlier this week that the City Council in San Francisco suburb, San Rafael, California, voted unanimously to ban smoking in multi-unit residential buildings, including those with as few as two units. The mayor of San Rafael hopes his city will lead the way for others.
“We are happy to blaze a trail,” Mayor Gary Phillips said before the vote. “We’re most happy to be in the forefront of the issue because we think it will greatly benefit our residents and those visiting San Rafael, and we think it will set the tone for other cities as well.”
This is not the first time California has lead the way on restricting where people may smoke. In 1977:
Neighboring Berkeley became the world’s first city to restrict smoking in restaurants. California restaurants and most workplaces went smoke-free in 1995, and bars, once a smokers’ haven, followed in 1998. California and three other states now restrict smoking in cars with children.
It remains to be seen whether the rest of the country will follow San Rafael’s lead, as it did with California’s ban on smoking in restaurants. Just as smoking bans in restaurants faced opposition, some disagree with San Rafael’s ban in multi-unit housing, claiming it goes too far in regulating activities in the privacy of one’s home. One resident went so far as to decry the ban as “tyranny.” Whether you agree with the ordinance or not, it raises an important issue: as we gather together in cities we may need more intrusive rules for managing conduct in increasingly shared space. Optimal rules about guns, parking, traffic, noise, pets, and smoking will likely vary along the rural to urban spectrum. Tight constraints on smokers might not make much sense in rural areas but they’re more likely to be necessary in denser urban areas where the negative effects of second-hand smoke might otherwise be difficult to avoid.