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Ontario to Ban Smoking on Patios, Sports Fields, and Playgrounds
New changes to the Smoke-Free Ontario Act will take effect January 1, 2015.
Photo by Lyndsay Jobe from the Torontoist Flickr Pool.
The Ontario government announced Friday that smoking will be banned on restaurant and bar patios starting January 1, 2015—one of several changes to the Smoke-Free Ontario Act that will come into effect on that date.
Under the new rules, smoking on sports fields and playgrounds will also be prohibited, and it will be illegal to sell tobacco products on university and college campuses. The changes are part of the provincial government’s efforts to restrict smoking in public places, reduce exposure to second-hand smoke, and make it harder for young people to get their hands on tobacco products.
Protecting kids from the harmful effects of smoking was the overarching theme of the announcement. “The evidence shows that if children see adults smoking in casual settings, they go off to believe that it’s normal and a fun thing to do” said associate minister of health and long-term care Dipika Damerla in a telephone interview.
Damerla noted that municipalities already have the ability to ban smoking on patios and near playgrounds—the new province-wide measures, she said, are intended to replace this “patchwork” of municipal regulations.
The Ontario government’s stated goal is to have the lowest smoking rate of any province in Canada. Between 2000 and 2013, Ontario’s smoking rate fell by six percentage points to 18 per cent—a change amounting to 332,361 fewer smokers.