West Valley City bans smoking at city-owned facilities

WEST VALLEY CITY — If you're looking for a place to smoke in West Valley City, head for the parking lot.

An ordinance passed Tuesday night by the West Valley City Council bans smoking from all city-owned recreational areas and parks, including trails, bleachers, ball diamonds and soccer fields, but not from parking lots. That's one concession council members agreed on as a measure against discriminating against some residents who regularly smoke.

"There are a lot of men that smoke, and they want to watch their child play football, and they should have that right,"

Councilwoman Carolynn Burt said. "But they shouldn't have the right to blow smoke in the faces of all the other people trying to enjoy that football game. They brought that on themselves. So if they are smoking in the parking lot and they miss their son's touchdown, that is their fault, not ours."

Council members unanimously approved the ordinance after some discussion over whether the ordinance is too lax or too strict, but it ultimately decided not to incorporate some suggestions made by representatives of the American Cancer Society.

A handful of representatives from the society and Teen Advocates Against Tobacco, most of whom were not residents of West Valley City, encouraged the council to ban smoking at any outdoor place open to the general public, including golf courses and cemeteries. Although the council did not amend their ordinance to include a broader area, they did make two minor changes at the suggestion of the cancer society.

The changes gave the council's reasoning for enacting the ordinance as an effort to discourage youth smoking and cut back on the amount of cigarette butts that are deposited as trash in city parks.

12-year-old Sam Ellis, who spoke for Teen Advocates Against Tobacco emphasized his support for the ordinance. His older brother, John, held up a glass jar full of browned butts, a collection of about 470 discarded cigarettes from a sampling of West Valley's public parks as evidence of the impact smoking has on children who play.

"I've been around smokers sometimes in the skate park," Sam Ellis said. "It's just disgusting when you go past people who sit there and cough and gag. I support smoke-free parks."

Only two residents, both former smokers, spoke against the ordinance.

"If you haven't smoked, you don't understand this," said long-time resident Bill Inglesby, who said the ordinance would unfairly treat