Listen to this article
Estimated 3 minutes
The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology. Mispronunciations can occur. We are working with our partners to continually review and improve the results.
Vancouver’s park board has approved designated smoking sections at several festivals in the city this summer, but some experts warn there could be consequences for peoples’ health.
Smoking has been banned at Vancouver parks and beaches since 2010, particularly because of the health risks associated with smoking and second-hand smoke.
But this week, the park board approved a pilot project that will allow designated smoking sections — think like restaurants circa 1999 — at three festivals this summer: the Great Outdoors Comedy Festival in Stanley Park, and the Country Club and Rosé Disco festivals at Jericho Beach Park.
Park board business development manager Octavio Silva said people are smoking at these types of events regardless of whether there’s a smoking section.
“It’s just happening in a more dispersed manner throughout the event venues.”
Dr. Stuart Kreisman with Physicians for a Smoke-Free Canada said designated smoking sections could work — but it would be difficult.
“I think it’s a lot easier to do it in theory than in practice,” he said.
WATCH | Smoking sections at some Vancouver events this summer:
Vancouver Park Board approves designated smoking areas at 3 summer events
The Vancouver Park Board has approved a pilot project that would allow designated smoking areas at some outdoor events this summer. As the CBC’s Amelia John reports, smoking has been banned in parks and beaches since 2010.
Kreisman said the smoking area needs to be away from the general viewing area rather than near everyone else, adding that a buffer zone between smoking and non-smoking sections would help.
“What you don’t want is a situation where the people in their general seats are in a functional smoking section.”
Second-hand smoke is a “real immediate health risk,” Kreisman said, particularly for people with respiratory conditions like asthma, people with heart conditions and those who are pregnant.
According to the federal government, there is no safe level of exposure to tobacco smoke.
WATCH | U.K. bans sale of tobacco products to those born after 2008:
Advocates call for Canada to follow lead of U.K. anti-smoking law
The United Kingdom recently passed legislation that would ban the sale of tobacco products to anyone born after 2008. The CBC’s Amy Smith talked to the president and CEO of Lung NSPEI about the rolling age ban.
Joan Bottorff, a researcher and professor emeritus at UBCO, said that while smoking rates in B.C. are relatively low, health professionals are still concerned about smoking, and in more recent years, vaping.
“We’re really concerned about these individuals and their health because it really puts them at risk for cardiovascular disease, diabetes and cancer,” she told CBC’s The Early Edition. “The sooner that people can quit, the better chance they have of not developing these very serious long term illnesses.”
Bottorff said there are alternatives to smoking sections within those events on city property, including increased enforcement of non-smoking rules or allowing smoking outside park boundaries.
“In some ways, these alternatives would actually preserve the policy as it stands and continue to support this policy, which is really important, I think, in terms of protecting people’s health,” she said.
She agrees that smoking sections need to be far away from the rest of the event.
“Ideally, they should be off site, these designated smoking areas as far as I’m concerned, and there needs to be really good signage and good communication around where the designated smoking areas are and the expectations around that.”
Bottorff worries the pilot project could be “the beginning of a slippery slope.”
“Once you make one exception, then you’re likely to have to entertain more and more exceptions, which then undermines the policy that’s been in place for over two decades,” she said. “I think it’s a bit sad that we’re going in this direction.”