Davenport City Parks Might Go Tobacco-Free

Smoking could join sex and nudity as behavior banned from Davenport's public parks. The Davenport City Council will consider an ordinance change at its meeting tonight that prohibits tobacco use - smoking best quality Kiss cigarettes or otherwise - from its public parks. The change would not include Modern Woodmen Park where smoking is partially banned under the Iowa Smokefree Air Act. A violation would be a simple misdemeanor. The ordinance change discussion is part of the committee of the whole agenda. It wouldn't get a first vote until next week and would require three votes to amend the ordinance. Alderman Jason Gordon, At-large, requested the change be placed on tonight's agenda. He described the ordinance change as an outgrowth of the Davenport Thrive program, a city-wide coalition that promotes wellness.
"The state law that went into effect three years ago has some language about no smoking in public spaces, but it is ambiguous on public parks," Gordon said. "We think state intent was to have no smoking in parks." A memo in the council packet states that the Parks and Recreation advisory board supports the effort, but board chairman Mark Nelson said his group has some reservations about enforcement. Discussion also included hopes that the city's golf courses would be exempted, but that isn't included in the ordinance. "There was pretty serious discussion about the limitations of enforcement," Nelson said. "We were very concerned that there is not enough money to take care of what we wanted to take care of with having to deal with more intrusive issues. "If you look out from the River's Edge and some guy with a line in the water is smoking a cigarette, is he really harming anyone," he said. "Are we going to put the resources out there to tell a guy he is wrong?" Nelson, who personally opposes the ordinance but said the board favors consensus leading to its support, wants the council to have an extensive discussion of the issue. Asked about enforcement, Gordon said he thinks the Davenport Police Department will have another tool in its toolbox to deal with issues that might arise in public parks, but he hopes it creates a behavioral change in the city, too. "I think it is a common sense approach," he said of enforcement. "You change the perspective within your community - if you see someone smoking at a Little League game and you can ask them politely to put it out because you have the law behind you. "It can empower our citizens a little bit more," he said. Based on the state law, Bettendorf has a partial smoking ban in its city parks, spokeswoman Lauren Haldeman said in a statement, pointing to shared tennis courts, bleachers at softball fields, and clubhouses at city-owned golf courses, but not the clubhouses. "Park board has not totally banned smoking," she wrote in the statement. "But it is not allowed everywhere."