OAKLAND BANS SMOKING NEAR PUBLIC AREAS
Forget about lighting up an after-dinner stogie at an outdoor
cafe in Oakland.
Bus stops, public parks, golf courses, child care centers, ATMs
and movie-ticket lines are now off limits to smokers, too.
And so is any place within 10 feet of a bar or night club door.
Oakland just got tougher on people who puff.
The City Council early Wednesday broadly expanded the city's
secondhand smoke ordinance, taking a vote on the proposal at
about 1:45 a.m., at the tail end of a marathon meeting at City
Hall.
The final version, while powerful enough to draw cheers from
public-health advocates (and jeers from smokers and other
critics), was weakened considerably last week when the City
Council's public safety committee withdrew two controversial
provisions.
The first of the abandoned provisions would have banned smoking
in all new condo and apartment complexes.
