Residents of one California city looking to light up in the comfort of their own homes are going to have to think twice, as the city passed a ban making it illegal to smoke in one’s residence.
According to ABC News, the ordinance makes it illegal for San Rafael, Calif., residents to smoke inside their homes if their residence shares a wall with another dwelling. Passed last month, the ban becomes the most stringent in the nation.
“We based it on a county ordinance,” Rebecca Woodbury, an analyst for the San Rafael City Manager’s Office, told ABC News. “But we modified it and ended up making it the strictest. I’m not aware of any ordinance that’s stronger.”
The ban applies to both owners and renters and includes condos, co-ops, apartments and any multi-family residence that contains three or more units.
“We are happy to blaze a trail,” San Rafael Mayor Gary Phillips said, according to The Daily Mail. “We’re more happy to be in the forefront of the issue because we think it will greatly benefit our residents and those visiting San Rafael, and we think it will set the tone for other cities as well.”
Though other towns nationwide — like Cambridge, Mass., and Tiburon, Calif. — have similar bans, the ordinance in San Rafael is unique because it extends to dwellings that share a wall, whether they’re owner-occupied condos, duplexes or multi-family units.
“It doesn’t matter if it’s owner-occupied or renter-occupied,” Woodbury told ABC News. “We didn’t want to discriminate. The distinguishing feature is the shared wall.”
The analyst went onto cite studies that show secondhand smoke seeping through ventilating ducts, walls and even cracks.
Woodbury noted there has been little opposition to the law. But others view the ban as yet another instance of government overreach.
“I don’t like cigarettes, and I’ve never taken a puff,” Steve Stanek, a research fellow at the Heartland Institute, told ABC News. “My sympathies aren’t with the smokers because I am one. It’s because of the huge growth in laws and punishments and government restricting people more and more. … The encroachment of government is astonishing.”
But San Rafael’s ban isn’t limited to one’s home. According to the city’s website, it bans smoking in outdoor dining areas, on sidewalks — except when one is “actively passing on the way to another destination” — within 20 feet of entryways to buildings where smoking is prohibited, and in open space and recreation areas.
The San Rafael City Council unanimously approved the ordinance.
