Recently, Mayor Ed Murray decided to ban smoking in public parks — a decision that was approved by the city’s Seattle Parks Board of Commissioners.
The all-out smoking ban — which was approved by outgoing Seattle Parks and Recreation Superintendent Christopher Williams without the proposed $27 fine that initially came with it — will use Parks employees’ time to ask people to stop smoking on park property. The intention was to “de-normalize” smoking, and while it may do that to a small extent, the effort put in isn’t enough to justify the outcome.
As many pointed out and as The Seattle Times reported, such a ban could be used to target the homeless population, who spend time in the parks. While leaders say it won’t and formed a committee to address concerns, those groups do spend more time smoking in parks than the general public and, therefore, would be targeted more.
While the ban is for a good cause and will make parks an even safer and healthier place, it seems like the city and even parks department have bigger fish to fry. It doesn’t seem like it will be highly enforced, and even if it is, a stern talking-to isn’t as incentivizing as the fine might have been. All of this could be for nothing, though, because a similar 2010 ban has resulted in no written citations, according to The Seattle Times.
With all of the hoopla, committee-forming and protesting around this decision, it may have been just as effective to have Murray say he doesn’t want people to smoke in the parks, rather than create a ban, which, as history has shown, likely won’t be enforced. It seems like a formal opinion or call to cease smoking would have been just as effective.
All of that being said, if you are a smoker, consider who you are smoking around and certainly don’t leave your butts on any ground, much less park grounds.