Smoking outdoors to be outlawed on three busy Frankston streets

[Tay_]

SMOKING outdoors will be outlawed along entire streets in a Victorian-first trial.

Frankston City Council is preparing to impose blanket bans along three busy open-air shopping strips, including opposite the train station.

Lighting up in the designated exclusion zones during the planned six-month trial could cost defiant smokers fines up to $110.

Frankston Mayor Christine Richards said the bid to banish cigarette smoke from streets would probably upset some people, but the health benefits were worth any flak.

"We want to make people think twice about the way they conduct themselves in the public domain, and who they are affecting," she said

"There are a huge number of deaths from tobacco in Victoria each year, more than from alcohol and traffic accidents and illicit drugs. We want to do something about it."

Cr Richards said the hefty fines would be imposed by council officers, but details were still to be decided.

Victorian laws already ban smoking in pubs, cafes, shopping centres, gaming venues and workplaces, on some beaches, on covered train platforms, and in cars carrying children.

The council has voted to run an education campaign and consult the community before starting the trial in September.

Cr Richards said the proposed laws were a glimpse of the future for Victorian smokers, and she hoped other councils would adopt similar measures.

But Alistair Wardle - the only one of nine councillors to vote against the trial - described the move as "a bit extreme".

"My main concern is that it is an infringement of civil liberties," Cr Wardle said.

"It's getting trivial, booking people for smoking on the pavement. It's open space - if people see someone smoking, they can walk around them."

Cr Wardle said he feared the rules would "create aggravation and annoyance" among smokers, would be difficult to police, and would simply shift smokers and their litter elsewhere.

Local pharmacy worker Shelly Puddy said she doubted tobacco addicts would take much notice of new laws.

"I don't know if they'll stop for anything," she said.

"It would be nice to not have to breathe in a cloud of smoke as you walk along ... but I wish the council luck in making it happen."

Trader Jenni Le said the smoke-free zones - two malls and the western side of Young St - were "a bit stupid".

"It seems a bit silly to ban it on one side of the street and not the other. Aren't the smokers going to cross the road?" she said.

Newsagent Vasilis Aroutzidis welcomed the proposed bans.

"I notice the smoke when I walk through it, and I am a smoker. It must be bad for non-smokers," he said.

A report by council staff said the bans would be complicated and noted community concerns about over-regulation.

"Smoking is a legal activity and people who smoke are not criminals, nor are they undesirable individuals to have in commercial precincts," it said

[SuBMiSSioN]

Inshaa'Allaah this gets pushed as a law in the rest of the country.

[knowledge_a_lost_treasure]

I'd rather see more effort being put into 'eradicating' drugs, chroming and drinking in public, before making a push on banning smoking.

Banning smoking in 'three busy Frankston streets' does not identify or address the real issue of smoking, yet another quick fix soultion and waste taxpayers $$$$

[SuBMiSSioN]

You can't eradicate it completely first.. You have to go one step at a time. Plus, it already is illegal to chrome or drink out on the streets.

I'm happy to have smoking outlawed out on the streets.. That means no having to breath in 2nd hand smoke. It is worse than smoking itself.. And so it affects me personnally more than what someone drinking or chroming would.

[Musa]

Fixing the minor things directly addresses the larger things.

There is an idea in crime prevention known as 'Broken Windows' or something or the other.. It suggests that if you allow broken windows to remain unfixed in an area, even if its just some abandoned factory, then criminals will be more likely to commit crimes in its vicinity.
If however you fix them and make the area look neat and respectable, then the criminals will not hang around there.

Think about this.. Where you have more people hanging around doing un-social things, you will find others doing the same being more uncomfortable there.
Where do all the junkies and chromers hang around outdoors in the city? Around the casino, in laneways.. They don't flock to the footpaths out the front of 5 star restaurants..

Eradicating smoking is a sign that everything after that is not welcome either and I welcome it as a great move that the whole city should implement. The effects of banning smoking in certain areas in Nazi Germany had great effects that we could learn from if only the government didn't love the revenue from these lethal tobacco and nicotine filled things...