D.C. Council takes up tighter smoking restrictions

Publication Date: 2010-01-05

• Author:Michael Neibauer
• Publication:The Washington Examiner

The D.C. Council will move Tuesday to toughen the District's smoking laws with new provisions targeting underage tobacco use and lighting up on public sidewalks, part of a broad bill that could portend a more rigid ban down the road.

The omnibus smoking legislation, up for the first of two council votes, establishes civil penalties for minors who buy cigarettes, bars street vendors from selling tobacco products, bans the sale of "blunt wraps" often used to roll marijuana and allows commercial property owners to post signs banning smoking outside their buildings.

It does not outlaw smoking outdoors. But the idea, at least, is on the table.

"You could say no smoking on public ways within a certain distance of residences or businesses, something of that nature," Ward 3 Councilwoman Mary Cheh said last month as the judiciary committee, on which she serves, discussed the bill. "I could even support that."