Contra Costa supervisors have tied up some loose ends around a 2006 law that prohibits smoking in certain public places and restricts it in apartment buildings.
The added regulations apply in unincorporated areas and require restaurant owners to remove ashtrays from outdoor seating areas and to ask people who are smoking there to put out their cigarettes.
Also, owners of apartment buildings now will have to tell prospective tenants which apartments are occupied by smokers.
The new rules add to protections enacted under the county's Secondhand Smoke Protections Ordinance passed in 2006 and correspond to rules in many Contra Costa cities. The county ordinance prohibited smoking at outdoor restaurants; trails and parks; service areas, such as ATMs or bus stops; and common indoor and outdoor areas of multiunit residences. A California EPA report has linked secondhand smoke to a number of health problems, including cancer, heart disease and respiratory ailments.
"We had been getting complaints about some outdoor dining areas that have not come into compliance," said Denice Dennis, the county's Tobacco Prevention Project manager. "We are telling owners or managers who have that area under their control that they are responsible (for enforcing the rules)."
Restaurants are not required to eject those who refuse to stop smoking in an outdoor area.
The rules apply to the immediate dining area but do not mandate buffer zones
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around the tables. For example, the restaurant would not be required to approach a smoker standing close to but not in the table area.
"The owner or manager now has the same responsibility as in the indoor area," Dennis said. "Before, the only thing they had to do was put up no-smoking signs. They could still put ashtrays (outside)."
The county has jurisdiction over 23 full-service restaurants with outdoor seating, Dennis said, but the rules also apply to Starbucks and other coffee bars with outdoor tables. A Starbucks spokeswoman said their franchises try to comply with all nonsmoking ordinances in indoor and outdoor areas.
A manager at the Blackhawk Grill in unincorporated Danville, who asked not to be identified, said he already asks customers to put out their cigarettes if they light up on the patio. Coa, a neighboring eatery, enforces the same no-smoking policy at outside tables as it does inside, a manager said.
The new apartment rules were a response to the large number of complaints to the county about secondhand smoke drifting into apartments through windows and ventilation systems, Dennis said. Landlords must have a clear policy for handling all smoking complaints and identify units where smokers are present so that would-be renters can better gauge if they are going to be exposed to smoke.
"A lot of tenants are looking for smoke-free units, and this is a way to alert (them)," Dennis said. "Landlords don't need to designate smoking units, but they will have to disclose which ones have smokers."
Tenants who object to smokers moving in next to them could be out of luck, however, because landlords still are not required to decide whether units are smoking or nonsmoking.
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