Florence City Council members to propose city smoking ban

If three members of Florence City Council have their way, the smoking lamp will be extinguished in certain areas of the city.

Council members Octavia Williams-Blake and Buddy Brand are sponsoring a bill to regulate smoking. A co-sponsor is Mayor Stephen J. Wukela.

The bill is scheduled to be introduced at the regular Nov. 9 Florence City Council meeting. First reading would be proposed at that time.

“I want the public to know the smoking ordinance is not about people’s right to smoke,” Williams-Blake said, “it’s about protecting employees and the public from the (proven) harmful effects of secondhand smoke.

“I think the public is ready for a smoke-free city. I hope my fellow city council members will not allow absorption in their own personal vices to interfere with what we have been elected as public officials to do, which is protect our constituency.”

Williams-Blake said of the 100 or so people she has spoken with about the ordinance, only one person was against it.

Williams-Blake said the S.C.Supreme Court has upheld all challenges to city smoke-free ordinances, thus validating that it is within Florence City Council’s authority to pass smoke-free ordinances.

Twenty-eight other cities in the state have passed smoke-free ordinances.

“One of my fellow council members said ‘he doesn’t care what they do in other cities,’” Williams-Blake said. “What he fails to realize is Florence is not an island unto itself. We are interrelated with all other citizens of this state and nation.

“Forty percent of South Carolina workers are protected in their workplaces against secondhand smoke. The citizens of the city of Florence deserve no less.”

Among others, the proposed ordinance would prohibit smoking in such enclosed public areas as galleries, libraries, museums, bars, bingo facilities, elevators, convention facilities, conference centers, exhibition halls, educational facilities (public and private), health care facilities, hotel and motel lobbies, licensed childcare and adult daycare facilities, and polling places.

Also, lobbies, hallways, and other common areas in apartment buildings, condominiums, trailer parks, retirement facilities, nursing homes and other multiple-unit residential facilities, private clubs when being used for a function to which the general public is invited, restaurants, restrooms, lobbies, reception areas, hallways and other common-use areas.

Also, public transportation facilities, including buses and taxicabs and ticket, boarding and waiting areas of public transit depots, retail stores, service lines, shopping malls sports arenas and rooms, chambers, places of meeting or public assembly, including school buildings.

The ordinance also includes certain outdoor areas “when the use involves a gathering of the public, regardless of the number actually assembled for the event, performance or competition.”

This would include amphitheaters, ball parks and stadiums when in use for athletic competitions or public performances, parades and special events on public streets and city property (although the city manager has the discretion, but not the obligation, to establish designated smoking areas in or in proximity to the parade or event area), dining areas in encroachment areas on public sidewalks, plazas and parks and dining areas on decks, balconies and patios of restaurants and bars, public places and public sidewalks abutting acute care hospital property lines and zoos.