The results of a city-led online survey show the majority of St. Albert residents support a full ban on smoking and vaping in public places.
More than 2,110 participants provided feedback to the survey, which launched in March, as the city considers possible changes to the current smoking bylaw. The results will be used by city council to determine if further restrictions should be placed on where smokers can light up. This would include tobacco vaping as well.
The survey, which was presented to city council during Monday’s governance, priorities and finance committee meeting, shows 61 per cent of respondents supported a full ban on smoking and vaping in public places while 53 per cent felt the minimum distance of five metres was too close.
The survey also showed that 46 per cent agreed the current restrictions around smoking weren’t strict enough while 53 per cent felt the same way about vaping.
Around 65 per cent felt there should be designated smoking areas at markets, festivals and concerts.
Barry Davis, associate vice-president of Leger, the company that conducted the survey, said the majority of both smokers and non-smokers supported this idea. He said the main question was on whether or not council should bring in a full prohibition of smoking and vaping in public places.
“It’s a polarized set of views on this,” he said. “You can certainly see the strongly supported and strongly opposed numbers are quite a bit larger than those that are somewhat opposed and supported. That’s something to be mindful about as well.”
Under the current bylaw, smokers are prohibited from smoking or vaping tobacco in some public areas, such as bus shelters or city facilities, but not in other public areas like parks, park trails and on public sidewalks.
Another component of restricting smoking rules would be to align it more with how the city handles cannabis, which could make both sets of rules easier to enforce.
Since the survey was presented as information only, council took the opportunity to ask a number of follow up questions, especially around getting more feedback.
Council decided to ask the various advisory groups, both local school boards and the St. Albert Chamber of Commerce for their thoughts on a full ban.
Councillors Ray Watkins and Natalie Joly both brought up the issue of enforcement, with the former pointing out roughly five tickets were handed out to smokers last year. No tickets have been issued for smoking cannabis so far.
However, Joly said there just isn’t enough enforcement being done.
“I was at the river cleanup on the weekend and I think we picked up more cigarette butts than any other garbage,” she said. “People might be obeying the smoking bylaws but not the littering bylaws or whatever the laws there are out there. There’s a lot of evidence that people are breaking the rules somewhere in there.”
It was pointed out during the meeting that a few municipalities have followed through with full bans, such as Halifax, but if council decides to go that route, St. Albert would be the first municipality in Alberta to do so.
