Public Health South health promotion adviser Dave Gibbs said Smokefree Otago would submit a report with recommendations to the DCC Community Development Committee later this month regarding smokefree outdoor areas and events.
Recommendations would include the development and implementation of a smokefree public places educational policy covering all council-administered parks, reserves, playgrounds, sports fields and swimming pools, as well as the development and implementation of a smokefree policy for all family-oriented events supported by the DCC, Mr Gibbs said.
The DCC has no city-wide policy relating to smoking in outdoor public places.
Mr Gibbs said the report would follow Public Health South submissions recently made to the DCC draft annual plan.
"Public Health South made submissions on a range of issues in the draft annual plan, including smokefree initiatives," Mr Gibbs said.
[comment caption=Should smoking be banned in DCC outdoor areas?]"We're still waiting to hear back from the council on those while the Smokefree coalition is in the process of submitting a report later this month."DCC community development committee team leader Rebecca Parata said decisions about Public Health South's previous submissions would not be made until the end of the month.
"Public Health South has twice made [smoking-related] submissions to the council, but neither time was any work requested.
Annual plan hearings were only held last week, with deliberations this week, but the council won't make decisions until the May 31 meeting and those won't be finalised until June," Ms Parata said.
Mr Gibbs said many territorial authorities in New Zealand had implemented smokefree policies covering outdoor public places.
Last June, the Christchurch City Council approved a policy making all parks and reserves, including playgrounds and sports fields, as well as council-administered events in Christchurch and Banks Peninsula smokefree.
Adopting smokefree policies for public spaces was "educational, not punitive", Mr Gibbs said.
"We know from research that increased smokefree environments contribute towards fewer young people beginning to smoke - the less they see smoking, the less normal it seems."
Smokefree outdoor public places would reduce children and young people's exposure to smoking and better reflect actual smoking rates, Mr Gibbs said.
Signage and publicity were important ways of encouraging the community to maintain a clean, healthy environment in areas used by young people, he said.
"Experience with smokefree outdoor public places has shown that smokers are generally very considerate, and will smoke outside smokefree areas.
"If someone does light up in a smokefree area, other users of that space will often ask them to step outside the area to smoke."
