Smoking ban in all Seattle parks begins today

by | Jul 6, 2015

As of today, all parks in Seattle are smoke free. The ban includes any publicly-accessible park facility, including neighborhood pocket parks.

Park visitors used to have to be 25 feet away from other visitors to smoke; the new ban eliminates smoking entirely.

Enforcement of the new rule would primarily be a matter of education and will be entrusted to Park Rangers and the Seattle police officers. The enforcement protocol for the new rule was developed in 2012. This protocol does not include excluding people from a park because they are smoking.

Park Rangers will approach smokers and provide them with information on where they can smoke and a resource card with information about the policy and resources for help in quitting tobacco (if they wish to quit). The next level of enforcement would be a verbal warning, followed by a written warning. Seattle Parks expects a large percentage of smokers to voluntarily comply with the verbal requests or verbal warnings.

To report a non-emergency nuisance activity, the public should call the Seattle Police non-emergency line at 206-625-5011.

Park visitors who have been given a written trespass warning for smoking in a park can set up a meeting to dispute the claim by emailing [email protected] or by calling 206-684-4075.

Smoking is allowed on public rights-of-way, including sidewalks. For more information about the smoking ban, please visit the Seattle Parks and Recreation website at https://www.seattle.gov/parks/smokingban/.

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