Battleford town council passed a smoking control bylaw, with all three readings at Monday’s meeting.
The bylaw introduces a number of smoking restrictions on cannabis, tobacco and vaping.
Federal and provincial governments recently passed cannabis legislation and municipalities have been making their own rules pertaining to cannabis.
The bylaw applies to entertainment and hospitality establishments, “including but not restricted to casinos, restaurants, private clubs and other licensed and non-licensed premises,” outdoor and indoor public places operated by the Town and outdoor public events.
Public places include playgrounds, outdoor sports fields, public squares and recreation areas. “Outdoor public place” does not include streets or sidewalks.
“Outdoor public event” means “any outdoor area of Town-owned, controlled or operated property, including sidewalks or street, being used for any public event where the public is invited to gather.” This includes a market, contest, festival, celebration, fair, exhibition, concert and others.
Other areas included in the bylaw are schools or school grounds, an enclosed public place other than a school, within six metres of a doorway, window or air intake of an enclosed public place (as the bylaw defines “public place”) and any vehicle while another person who is under the age of 16 is present.
Smoking, consuming and holding lit tobacco in the mentioned areas would result in $200 notice of violation to be paid within 14 days. If not, the person is liable to a $1,000 fine.
Vaping is subject to the same penalties, although testing or sampling products with vaping devices aren’t prohibited. As defined in the bylaw, vaping includes “any tobacco or non-tobacco substance including cannabis, whether or not it contains nicotine.”
No one is permitted to smoke cannabis, hold a lit cannabis product or consume any cannabis product in any public place.
A subsection of the bylaw penalizes consuming cannabis products in a manner that “adversely affects the safety, health or welfare of people or people’s reasonable use and enjoyment of their property.”
CAO John Enns-Wind described a situation in which a couple is entitled to smoke cannabis in their backyard, and it is “reasonable that they are out there.”
“However, if you have 10, 12, 15 people in the backyard drinking alcohol, that can become unreasonable fairly quickly and at the end of the day that’s what we’re thinking,” Enns-Wind said.
Mayor Ames Leslie spoke to the News-Optimistafter the meeting, and described an example of enforcement pertaining to Town-operated places.
“If someone is smoking in the Tot Lot now, the Safety Officer can say ‘Sir, Ma’am, you can’t be smoking in here, there’s kids. You’re too close to the school,’” Leslie said.
“It gives us the power to send somebody to deal with it.”
A person entitled to medical cannabis is not subject to the bylaw, although an officer is permitted to demand a copy of the person’s medical document.
Nothing in the bylaw prohibits a person from smoking or holding lit tobacco in a Town-owned public place for Aboriginal spiritual or cultural practices or ceremonies, “if the use of tobacco ... is an integral part” of the practices or ceremonies.
Certain business owners are also subject to rules in the bylaw. Proprietors are responsible for disallowing the above behaviours on their premises relating to tobacco, vaping and cannabis, and are subject to a $500 fine to be paid within two weeks, with $5,000 being the highest penalty. There are also rules around signage.
RCMP and the Town’s Public Safety Officer Alain Manibal can carry out inspections.
An officer is not permitted to enter a private dwelling without a warrant or the consent of the owner or occupant.
The bylaw officer can do any or all things found in section 362 of the Municipalities Act, such a “after making reasonable efforts to notify the owner or occupant of the land or building at any reasonable (time) and carry out the inspection.”
The officer can also “enter with any equipment, machine, apparatus, vehicle or materials that the designated officer considers necessary for the purpose of entry.”
In “an emergency or extraordinary circumstances,” the officer “need not make reasonable efforts to notify the owner or occupant and need not enter at a reasonable hour.” Under such circumstances, the officer may enter the land or building without the consent of the owner or occupant.
On Monday, Enns-Wind said council may want to do only one reading and do the other readings in August at the next council meeting. Three readings passed.
The smoking control bylaw passed in council, but is not yet in force. It is to come into force the day the Cannabis Act is enacted, which is planned to be Oct. 17.
North Battleford city council is in the process of writing its own smoking bylaw.
