Ban Smoking Everywhere Public Outdoors in Irvine

We, the residents of Irvine, are simply tired of putting up with cigarette butts on the sidewalks, and people smoking around us when we are trying to enjoy ourselves. The needs of 13\% of adults should not compromise the right of the rest of them to breathe clean air. In principal, smokers have as much a right to smoke around others as drinkers have a right to drive drunk.

We are asking the Irvine city council that they ban smoking in all outdoor public places in Irvine, including, but not limited to; shopping centers, sidewalks, and parking lots. This does not include private property, such as backyards or inside multi-unit housing. The Irvine city council already banned smoking in all city parks.

In early 2006, Calabasas, CA, population 25,000, did a smoking ban like this. It is completely legal.

Outdoor secondhand smoke does pose a significant health risk, contrary to popular belief. According to an independent study done at Stanford University, outdoor air contaminated by a cigarette can reach particulate matter levels 50 times that of normal city air.

Cigarette butts on the ground can choke animals, look ugly, get ingested by animals, or be re-lit and smoked by youth. The single most effective way to stop cigarette litter is to ban smoking, and that always works better than picking it up or public education.

This will also help smokers quit, improve business for the Irvine Company shopping centers, and change the norm from smoking to not smoking.