Sec. 32-15. - Findings and purpose.

(a)

Findings. The board of supervisors of the county finds that:

(1)

Smoking is the primary cause of fire-related injuries and deaths in the home, as evidenced by the following:

(a)

Cigarettes, cigars, pipes and other smoking materials are the leading cause of fire deaths in the United States and produced an estimated one hundred forty thousand seven hundred (140,700) smoking-related fires, seven hundred twenty (720) deaths, one thousand five hundred eighty (1,580) injuries, and $530 million in direct property damage in 2007.

(b)

One (1) in four (4) fatalities from home fires caused by smoking is not the smoker whose cigarette started the fire; smokers' neighbors and friends account for twenty-five (25) percent of all fire deaths (not including the fire deaths of the smokers responsible for starting the fires) caused by smoking.

(c)

Smoking at a residence where long-term oxygen therapy takes place is very dangerous as oxygen is a fire accelerant. In a study of fatalities resulting from residential fires caused by smoking during long-term oxygen therapy, twenty-seven (27) percent of the fatalities occurred in multifamily dwellings.

(d)

The United States Fire Administration recommends people smoke outdoors.

(2)

Nonsmokers who live in multi-unit dwellings can be exposed to neighbors' secondhand smoke, as evidenced by the following:

(a)

Secondhand smoke can seep under doorways and through wall cracks, open windows, open doorways and heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems.

(b)

The United States 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.

(3)

Most Californians do not smoke and a majority favor limitations on smoking in multi-unit residences, as evidenced by the following:

(a)

In 2008, approximately eighty-seven (87) percent of Californians and ninety-one (91) percent of California women were non-smokers.

(b)

Sixty-nine (69) percent of California voters surveyed in 2008 favored limiting smoking in outdoor common areas of apartment buildings, and seventy-eight (78) percent supported laws that create nonsmoking sections in apartment buildings, where all the apartments, balconies and patios in that section would be smoke- free.

(c)

Sixty-two (62) percent of California renters surveyed in 2004 believed there was a need for laws to limit smoking in apartment buildings.

(4)

There is no constitutional right to smoke.

(b)

Purpose. This article is adopted to (1) protect the public health, safety and welfare by discouraging the inherently dangerous behavior of smoking around non- tobacco users by protecting children from exposure to smoking where they live and play and by protecting the public from nonconsensual exposure to secondhand smoke in and around their homes and (2) to strike a reasonable balance between the need of persons who smoke and the need of nonsmokers to breathe smoke-free air, and to recognize that, where these needs conflict, the need to breathe smoke-free air has priority.

(Ord. No. 5947, § 1, 9-13-2011.)