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PTC smoking ban still smoldering

By JOHN MUNFORD
jmunford@thecitizennews.com

Peachtree City’s proposed ban on indoor smoking will be revisited at a public meeting Monday at 6 p.m. in the downstairs meeting room of the city library.

One of the requirements — that smokers must be 25 feet away from buildings while smoking outdoors — may not be necessary, Mayor Steve Brown said Tuesday. That rule was proposed to keep smoke from entering buildings through doors or windows, but instead the city could require that the air flow in buildings be maintained so it constantly blows out when the door is opened, Brown said.

That way, the smoke couldn’t make its way inside, he added. It would also be ideal for large-scale developments to have a designated smoking area built into the plan, Brown said.

Monday’s meeting is also expected to address a citizen’s opinion that secondhand smoke wasn’t harmful to the public health, Brown said. The Centers for Disease Control has been contacted for more information, Brown noted.

Brown also wants to find out what input local bar owners have toward improving the ordinance. At the original meeting on the proposed ordinance, it was indicated that bars might be excluded from the indoor smoking ban, though it was not clear exactly how that might be accomplished.

Brown said he personally has heard from a number of residents who were in favor of the smoking ban but could not attend the first meeting on the ordinance since it was on a Wednesday and thus conflicted with local church services.

The ban, as proposed, would not cover personal residences but it would be applied to all enclosed areas in restaurants and the public areas of other businesses in the city. The ban would also be enforced at enclosed areas at convention facilities, service lines, shopping malls, sports arenas, polling places and “facilities primarily used for exhibiting a motion picture, stage, drama, lecture, musical recital or other similar performance.”