Smoking Bans Extended To More Chicago Parks

Jul

So, I know it’s been awhile. Life has just been crazy lately. School, work, moving, kids’ activities. Let me tell you, there haven’t been any reviews because there’s been no smoking!! Even when I have a moment to light up, the intense Houston heat has just been…well…intense.

Anyway, at least in Houston, if I were at a park, I could still light up. Residents of the Chicago area are finding that this isn’t the case for them. Here’s the story:

The steady march to rid parks and playgrounds of cigarette butts spread to Zion this summer after a group of students surveyed residents and then pushed the Park District to enact the ban that most supported.

The 752 acres of parkland went smoke-free in mid-June, although the ban ends at the fairways of the two golf courses and carries no penalties.

Park District officials are betting smokers will heed the signs and police themselves.

“We’re just going to take it real slow,” said Rich Walker, Zion’s director of parks and recreation. “We’re certainly not interested in disrupting family picnics.”

And Austin Sears, 18, of Healthy Youth, the student organization at Zion-Benton Township High School, also is hopeful about cooperation.

“It’s kind of a self-enforcement thing, kind of like signs not to feed the ducks or signs posting the speed limit,” Sears said. “People follow those.”

Zion joins the ranks of Deerfield, Lake Forest, Oak Park and a half-dozen other towns with smoke-free parks, taking a step further the statewide ban that snuffed out cigarettes in virtually all public places in January 2008.

Chicago was among the first to ban smoking along the beachfront and in parks with playgrounds and playlots two years ago. But smokers still can light up in green spaces without playgrounds, a Chicago Park District spokeswoman said.

Wilmette bans smoking at the beachfront, pool and outdoor amphitheater, but Park District officials are considering whether to prohibit cigarettes at any park event attended by more than 20 people, said Thomas Grisamore, executive director of the Wilmette Park District.

“This started as a health issue. The mess issue [with cigarette butts] was part of the problem too,” Grisamore said.

Evanston extends its no-smoking rule to all beaches, playgrounds and tot lots. But the city draws the line at a blanket ban in all parks. It would be “impossible to enforce,” said Doug Gaynor, director of the Parks, Forestry and Recreation Department.

“Somebody can be in the middle of a 10-acre plot and be smoking and not be an infringement,” Gaynor said.

In Zion, Healthy Youth campaigns against teen use of tobacco and alcohol. It decided to take on smoking in community parks and surveyed more than 800 local residents on the issue of smoke-free parks. A majority endorsed the idea, said Sears, of Beach Park.

The teens approached the Zion Park District with their findings this spring. The board enacted the no-smoking ordinance in May and erected signs in parks late last month.

On a recent afternoon in Shiloh Park, Brittany Piel and Steve Mapson played with their 9-month-old son, Steve Jr.

The Waukegan couple were split on the park’s new smoking ban. Piel praised it and its health benefits.

“Anywhere there are children or wildlife, there shouldn’t be smoking,” she said.

But Mapson, a smoker, did not think a sign would deter people from lighting up in the park.

“If someone really wants to do it bad enough, they will do it anyway,” he said.