- Wikimedia
Starting July 1, there’s NO SMOKING in city parks, everybody. But Parks Commissioner Amanda Fritz is having second thoughts about just what the consequences should be if you break the rules.
Fritz has introduced an amendment, scheduled to go before Portland City Council on Wednesday, that would eliminate the specter of a misdemeanor offense if you’re lighting up in one of our city’s green spaces. Instead, under Fritz’s new proposal, you might be asked to leave. And if you don’t want to leave? You can stay.
“It’s important to the bureau in general and Commissioner Fritz in particular that people who visit the park and are using tobacco are not seen as breaking the law as criminals,” says Portland Parks and Recreation spokesman Mark Ross. “The whole intention all along has been to protect public health and to protect our parks from fire danger.”
Council voted on the smoking ban back in February, with only Commissioner Dan Saltzman opposing the idea (he thinks it’s unenforceable and didn’t want cops to be beefing with smokers). That passage was somewhat easier than similar bans in other cities. Seattle, for instance, saw pushback from advocates for the homeless, who worried the policy would end up pushing out people who have nowhere else to go.
Activists here mostly kept mum, but planned to watch the smoking ban’s enforcement for inequities or signs homeless people were being targeted. Fritz’s amendment might alleviate some of those concerns. It would eliminate the possibility you’d be charged for a crime when park-puffing, or even that you could be issued an exclusion, which can result in arrest if you’re caught back on the property.
The new verbiage says a person caught smoking “shall be required to leave the Park in which the offense occurred for the remainder of the day,” but even that’s a touch strong. Ross says the plan is that parks personnel would ask you to put the cigarette (or e-cigarette, or cigar, or corn silk crudely rolled in notebook paper) out. Refuse? You’ll be asked to leave. Refuse? Okay, then.
“If you decide to react that way it’s going to be your own decision to live with,” Ross says. “It’s not gonna escalate to anything beyond [a parks employee] walking away.”
The amendment also shortens a grace period designed to educate smokers about the policy. It ends the day the ban goes into effect: July 1.
I’ve asked Fritz’s office for comment on her reasons for the amendment, but it’s after 5 pm on a Friday, so….
No consequences other than the obvious – cancer, heart disease, stroke, etc.
And likewise, very probable that there will be no legal consequences for smoking anything else in the parks starting next month.
So Fritz wants the same rules that they have now for bums who live in a park. You might be asked to leave, but if you’d rather just throw some garbage around and take a piss out the door of your tent that’s fine too.
What about smoking weed, drinking beer, and shooting up heroin in the park? Does that still have no consequences too?
Maybe Fritz is doing this to support the homeless smokers in her new homeless tent camps, after all this land will be owned by us.
Fritz is running for office again, maybe it’s time to replace her!