The next shoe has dropped in the City of San Antonio's effort to restrict smoking, as cigarettes are now officially banned in all public parks around the city, News Radio 1200 WOAI reports.
Assistant City Manager Colleen Bridger, who is the city's former Metropolitan Health Director, says this goes handing in hand with the city's year old ordinance banning the sale of cigarettes to anybody under the age of 21, which has also now been approved statewide.
"And the governor has expressed support," she said. "It is just as good as when it passed here in San Antonio."
She points out that there is now an effort in the U.S. Congress to ban the sale of cigarettes to people under 21 nationwide.
The smoking ban in parks is the result of complaints by park users that they should not have to be subjected to second hand smoke when they take their kids to a healthy, outdoor environment. There were also complaints about cigarette butts being discarded in the parks, and people encountering them when exercising, playing games, and participating in other park activities.
"You get the feeling that this is going to make a tremendous impact on the health of the entire state," she said. "Decreasing the number of people who start smoking when they are kids is going to decrease the number of people who will die because of tobacco."
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