The Town Council does find that:
(A) Tobacco use causes death and disease and continues to be an urgent public health challenge, as evidenced by the following:
(1) Tobacco-related illness is the leading cause of preventable death in the United States, accounting for about 443,000 deaths each year; and scientific studies have concluded that tobacco use can
cause chronic lung disease, coronary heart disease, and stroke, in addition to cancer of the lungs, larynx, esophagus, and mouth; and
(2) Some of the most common types of cancers including stomach, liver, uterine cervix, and kidney are related to tobacco use; and
(B) Secondhand smoke has been repeatedly identified as a health hazard, as evidenced by the following:
(1) The U.S. Surgeon General concluded that there is no risk-free level of exposure to secondhand smoke; and
(2) The California Air Resources Board placed secondhand smoke in the same category as the most toxic automotive and industrial air pollutants by categorizing it as a toxic air contaminant for which there is no safe level of exposure; and
(3) The California Environmental Protection Agency included secondhand smoke on the Proposition 65 list of chemicals known to the State of California to cause cancer, birth defects, and other reproductive harm; and
(C) Exposure to secondhand smoke causes death and disease, as evidenced by the following:
(1) Secondhand smoke is responsible for as many as 73,000 deaths among nonsmokers each year in the United States; and
(2) Exposure to secondhand smoke increases the risk of coronary heart disease by approximately 30 percent; and
(3) Secondhand smoke exposure causes lower respiratory tract infections, such as pneumonia and bronchitis in as many as 300,000 children in the United States under the age of 18 months each year; and exacerbates childhood asthma; and
(D) The U.S. Food and Drug Administration conducted laboratory analysis of electronic cigarette samples and found they contained carcinogens and toxic chemicals to which users and bystanders could potentially be exposed; and
(E) Tobacco use and exposure to secondhand smoke impose great social and economic costs, as evidenced by the following:
(1) The total annual economic burden of smoking in the United States is $193,000,000,000; and
(2) From 2001 through 2004, the average annual health care expenditures attributable to smoking were approximately $96,000,000,000; and
(3) The medical and other costs to nonsmokers due to exposure to secondhand smoke were estimated at over $10,000,000,000 per year in the United States in 2005; and
(4) The total annual cost of smoking in California was estimated at $475 per resident or $3,331 per smoker per year, for a total of nearly $15,800,000,000 in smoking-related costs in 1999 alone; and
(5) California’s Tobacco Control Program saved the state and its residents $86,000,000,000 in health care expenditures between the year of its inception, 1989, and 2004, with savings growing yearly; and
(F) Exposure to secondhand smoke anywhere has negative health impacts, and exposure to secondhand smoke does occur at significant levels outdoors, as evidenced by the following:
(1) Levels of secondhand smoke exposure outdoors can reach levels attained indoors depending on direction and amount of wind and number and proximity of smokers; and
(2) Irritation from secondhand smoke begins at levels as low as four micrograms per cubic meter, and in some outdoor situations this level can be found as far away as 13 feet from the burning cigarette; and
(3) To be completely free from exposure to secondhand smoke in outdoor places, a person may have to move nearly 25 feet away from the source of the smoke, about the width of a two-lane road; and
(G) Thirdhand smoke harms indoor air quality and is a recognized public health concern, as evidenced by the following:
(1) Thirdhand smoke is residual tobacco smoke contamination after a cigarette has been extinguished and takes the form of particulate matter that is deposited in a layer onto every indoor surface; in loose household dust; and as volatile organic compounds that “off gas” into the air over days, weeks and months; and
(2) Desorption of thirdhand smoke from indoor surfaces to air is recognized as a source of tobacco exposure;
(3) A majority of adults in the United States agreed with the statement that breathing in air in a room today where people smoked yesterday can harm the health of children; and
(H) Thirdhand smoke exposure has negative health impacts, as evidenced by the following:
(1) Tobacco smoke constituents, even at low levels, have been proved toxic; and
(2) Residual nicotine from tobacco smoke absorbed to indoor surfaces reacts with ambient nitrous acid, a common indoor air pollutant, to form carcinogenic tobacco-specific nitrosamines; and
(3) High levels of nicotine on indoor surfaces represents a health hazard through dermal exposure, dust inhalation, and ingestion; and
(I) Smoking is the primary cause of fire-related injuries and deaths in the home, as evidenced by the following:
(1) Cigarettes, cigars, pipes and other smoking materials are the leading cause of fire deaths in the United States, causing an estimated 142,900 smoking-related fires, 780 deaths, 1,600 injuries, and $606,000,000 in direct property damage in 2006; and
(2) One in four fatalities from home fires caused by smoking is NOT the smoker whose cigarette started the fire, and 25 percent of those deaths were of neighbors or friends of the smoker; and
(3) Smoking in a residence where long-term oxygen therapy takes place is very dangerous as oxygen is a fire accelerant, and 27 percent of fatalities due to smoking during long-term oxygen therapy occurred in multifamily dwellings; and
(4) The United States Fire Administration recommends that people smoke outdoors; and
(J) Nonsmokers who live in multi-unit dwellings can be exposed to neighbors' secondhand smoke, as evidenced by the following:
(1) Secondhand smoke can seep under doorways and through wall cracks; and persons living in apartments near smokers can be exposed to elevated pollution levels for 24 hours a day, and at times, the particulate matter exposure can exceed the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s 24-Hour Health Based Standard; and
(2) The Surgeon General has concluded that eliminating smoking in indoor spaces is the only way to fully protect nonsmokers from secondhand smoke exposure and that separating smokers from nonsmokers, cleaning the air, and ventilating buildings cannot completely prevent secondhand smoke exposure; and
(3) The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the World Health Organization (WHO) have found that there is no risk-free level of secondhand smoke, and even brief exposure can cause immediate harm. Establishing a 100 percent smoke free environment is the only effective way to fully protect those who do not smoke from secondhand smoke.
(K) Most Californians do not smoke and a majority favors limitations on smoking in multi-unit residences, as evidenced by the following:
(1) Sixty-nine percent of Californians surveyed favor limiting smoking in outdoor common areas of apartment buildings and 78 percent support laws that create nonsmoking units; and
(2) Sixty-two percent of California renters feel that there is a need for laws to limit smoking in apartments; and
(L) A local ordinance that authorizes residential rental agreements to include a prohibition on smoking of tobacco products within rental units is expressly permitted by California law; and
(M) Creating smoke free areas helps protect the health of the 86.7 percent of Californians who are nonsmokers; and
(N) State law prohibits smoking within 25 feet of playgrounds and tot lots and expressly authorizes local communities to enact additional restrictions; and state law prohibits smoking within 20 feet of entryways and operable windows of government buildings; and
(O) Cigarette butts are a major and persistent source of litter, as evidenced by the following:
(1) It is estimated that over 2,000,000,000 billion cigarette butts are discarded every day worldwide, and that Americans alone discard more than 175,000,000 pounds of cigarette butts every year; and
(2) Cigarette butts are often cast onto sidewalks and streets, and frequently end up in storm drains that flow into streams, rivers, bays, lagoons and ultimately the ocean; and
(3) Cigarette filters, made of plastic cellulose acetate, take approximately 15 years to decompose; and
(P) There is no Constitutional right to smoke.
(Q) Electronic smoking devices, or "e-cigarettes," have become increasingly popular in recent years, as evidenced by the following:
(1) Between 2011 and 2012 the percentage of all youth in grades six to 12 who had tried electronic smoking devices doubled;
(2) Six point eight percent (6.8%) of all youth between sixth and twelfth grade report trying electronic smoking devices;
(3) Ten percent (10%) of high school students have tried electronic smoking devices;
(4) Nine point three percent (9.3%) of youth who have used electronic smoking devices have never smoked conventional cigarettes;
(5) Between 2010 and 2011, rates of both awareness and use of unregulated electronic smoking devices by adults also increased significantly;
(6) Findings from the 2014 National Youth Tobacco Survey show that current e-cigarette use (use on at least one day in the past 30 days) among high school students increased from 4.5% in 2013 to 13.4% in 2014, rising from approximately 660,000 to 2,000,000 students; and
(7) Among middle school students, current e-cigarette use more than tripled from 1.1% in 2013 to 3.9% in 2014, an increase from approximately 120,000 to 450,000 students.
(R) The State of California's Tobacco Education and Research Oversight Committee (TEROC) "opposes the use of e-cigarettes in all areas where other tobacco products are banned."
(S) A study published in the Journal of Environmental and Public Health suggests that electronic smoking devices "may have the capacity to 're-normalize' tobacco use in a demographic that has had significant denormalization of tobacco use previously."
(T) Electronic smoking devices often mimic conventional tobacco products in shape, size, and color, with the user exhaling a smoke-like vapor similar in appearance to the exhaled smoke from cigarettes and other conventional tobacco products.
(U) The use of electronic smoking devices in smoke free locations threatens to undermine compliance with smoking regulations and reverse the progress that has been made in establishing a social norm that smoking is not permitted in public places and places of employment.
(V) Cal. Health & Safety Code § 11362.3 provides that no person may smoke marijuana/ cannabis or marijuana/cannabis products in a location where smoking tobacco is prohibited. Therefore the smoking regulations herein are intended to apply equally to smoking of cannabis and cannabis products to the fullest extent permitted by law.
(W) Flavored tobacco products promote youth initiation of tobacco use and cause young occasional smokers to become daily smokers by reducing or masking the natural harshness and taste of tobacco smoke and thereby increasing the appeal of tobacco products.
(Ord. 754, passed 6-1-2011; Am. Ord. 790, passed 6-3-2015; Am. Ord. 814, passed 12-6-2017; Am. Ord. 836, passed 9-4-2019; Am. Ord. 858, passed 11-3-2021)