Public Smoking Laws, Secondhand Smoke

Drive by any downtown restaurant or bar on a busy night, and you'll see a group of customers near the entrance smoking. Stop into a pharmacy to pick up some cold medicine and you might see someone buying a pack of cigarettes. Go to an event in a private club and people sitting at the next table might be lighting up. Those scenarios would end if the city's Health Board adopts new public rules proposed for Haverhill. The board is considering regulations aimed at protecting the public from second-hand cigarette smoke by limiting where people can light up. Health Board member Peter Carbone said the new regulations are a work in progress and he expects changes once the board begins to gather public input and holds public hearings. He said the board announced its plans to stiffen smoking rules at its March meeting and will discuss a draft of the proposed new regulations May 8.

Student Presses for Ban on Smoking at Bus Stops

A complaint from a University of Waterloo student about secondhand smoke seeping into buses has Grand River Transit implementing new smoking rules. But Ahmad Zeitoun, a third-year biomedical science student, doesn’t believe the new restrictions go far enough. “I am not that pleased,” said the 20-year-old Kitchener man, a daily transit user who said a smoker is often standing nearby as he waits for his bus. As an asthmatic, Zeitoun said he’s concerned about the health hazards of breathing in second-hand smoke, not just for himself, but for other passengers. Last April, he took his concerns to regional council, asking that smoking marijuana be banned at bus stops. Instead, Grand River Transit is implementing these new rules starting early next year: