A smoking regulation advocacy group is applauding Burnaby’s efforts to ramp up restrictions on smoking in the city but said the city can go even further with its forthcoming bylaws.
Marilyn Bergstra, the B.C. policy specialist with Action on Smoking and Health (ASH Canada), presented to council recently, arguing the city should also ban smoking in hotel rooms and pushing back against hookah lounge owners’ advocacy for an exemption.
By limiting where people can smoke, Bergstra said the city can help reduce children’s exposure to smokers, something she noted can influence their decisions on smoking later in life. Even if children’s parents don’t smoke, seeing it normalized can make them more likely to pick up the habit later in life, she said.
This, Bergstra said, is all the more reason to ban all types of smoking inside, something the city’s bylaw is seeking to do.
“To a five-year-old, smoking is smoking, whether it involves vaping, smoking or toking of various substances. The more smoking impressions a child accumulates as they are growing up, the more likely they are to become smokers themselves,” Bergstra said.
Second-hand smoke from hookah, she added, is just as harmful as cigarette smoking – and could be even more harmful due to the amount of smoke generated from the hookah water pipe.
“The emission from water pipes often exceeds occupational health standards,” Bergstra noted in her case against hookah lounges.
Owners and proponents of the lounges point to hookah smoking as a significant cultural practice in places like the Middle East and South Asia. But Bergstra noted several countries have banned hookah smoking inside businesses, including Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon.
Instead, Bergstra said it was a matter of workers’ safety rights, something she said is compromised in the proposed bylaw through an exemption for hotel rooms.
“All workers deserve full protection from second-hand smoke, including hotel workers and cleaning staff. Many hotels have already banned smoking in their hotel rooms, and Burnaby should create a level playing field for motels and hotels,” Bergstra said.
“People who work at hookah bars and hotels are often working at minimum wage and in part-time positions. These workers are vulnerable due to their precarious employment, and they deserve full protection from second-hand smoke from work.”
Bergstra further advocated for the city to ban smoking at all public gatherings, not just the ones in parks, and to apply extra fees to shops selling tobacco to cover the costs of enforcement.
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