New bylaw asks smokers to butt out near playground equipment, beaches

After cleaning up cigarette butts at a beach, a peer leader with the local health unit said she wanted to do something to keep children areas smoke-free.

The City of Thunder Bay and the Thunder Bay District Health Unit celebrated the implementation of a new smoke-free city bylaw at a news conference on Monday. The bylaw prohibits smokers from coming within 10 metres of playground equipment, public beach areas and entrances to recreational facilities such as hockey arenas. The city plans to implement the bylaw on Tuesday.

Dakota Warkentin, 18, peer leader co-ordinator with the Thunder Bay District Health Unit, said she came up with the idea of prohibiting smokers around children’s areas when she cleaned up cigarette butts on a beach.

"The peer leaders were really the base of this bylaw," Warkentin said. "We were the ones that came up with the idea of having a bylaw. We were just alarmed to see the number of cigarette butts that we found on the beach. Parks and beaches should be the safest for children. There is no safe level of exposure for second-hand smoke."

Dakota said she felt intimidated when she first started the initiative but was glad to see the bylaw implemented.

"We put a lot of hard work into it," she said. "People sometimes don’t want to talk to youth but I think it does prove that we can do something and we do have a say in what’s going on in our community."

Dakota added that people should follow good examples and do what they believe in.

While the bylaw starts on Tuesday, Ken Ranta, manager of the health unit’s tobacco programs, said there would be an educational period for people to adjust to the new bylaw.

"The fines haven’t been set yet," Ranta said. "The first couple of months is an education period campaign. There aren’t expected to be charges laid tomorrow. Over the next couple of months those fines will be defined by the city."

Ranta said the new bylaw is an extension of the Smoke Free Ontario Act of 1994. He said people should smoke outdoors but at appropriate places and away from children and limited the ban to parks with playground equipment.

"If children are watching you smoke that might not be the best area to smoke", he said. "We’re not saying to hide smoking away in the closet. However, the more distance we have between children and the act of smoking the greater prevalence they will grow up in a smoke-free environment and see smoking as a not something they should emulate."