Snuffed Out: Will Rock Hill ban smoking in public parks?

The days of lighting up a cigarette in Rock Hill city parks may be nearing an end after the city’s parks and recreation commission delivered a recommendation before city council Monday night.

The plan, which would ban smoking outright in city parks, is somewhat already in place with an experimental ban on smoking at youth events.

“We’ve had good success in the limited place we’ve had it so far…,” commission vice chair Bev Carroll told city council. “We believe that people want it.”

Carroll said there’s little question as to the negative effects of smoking and second hand smoke. She believes it is time for the city to take the next step.

“We’re in the health business…we think it is the appropriate message to send to everyone that the parks in Rock Hill are places you can go and not be confronted with smoking,” she said.

If advanced, the idea would expand an existing smoking ban enacted in public and private enclosed facilities in 2009. That ban includes a ten-foot buffer, requiring anyone to smoke away from doors or windows.

Similar bans are already in effect in the upstate and lowcountry, with Greenville and Mount Pleasant both outlawing smoking indoors.

The American Lung Association’s State of Tobacco 2015 survey gives South Carolina grades of ‘F’ in tobacco prevention, smoke-free air and tobacco taxes and is publicly pushing for a statewide workplace smoking ban to be in place by 2019.