Council orders city residents to 'butt out!’

North Bay City Council took their by-laws into uncharted territory during Monday evening’s regular meeting.

Boldly passing a new smoking by-law, it will soon be illegal to smoke in any of the city's parks and properties.

This includes the waterfront, all beaches, the Kate Pace Way, sport’s fields and other parks but does not include sidewalks, as of yet.

Astonishingly, they also ensured that there be no legal access to a license for special exemptions and events to allow smoking.

This new type of city dominance over the legality of partaking in a legal activity is unprecedented and should raise the ear of every citizen who values their freedom.

The city parks are undoubtedly owned, maintained and presented for egalitarian and free use for all citizens and visitors to the city.

However, these visitors will now find that their presence is not welcome if they choose to smoke a legal tobacco product anywhere except for sidewalks where they exist.

To complicate the issue, bars and restaurants are under the microscope and review their legal right to continue to have smoking patios or alternative areas, especially ones covered from the elements like rain and sun.

It’s hard to fathom that a city like North Bay would see itself as a hospitable tourist area with the whole hearted adoption of such draconian measures, illegalizing the use of tobacco products altogether in public spaces, essentially everywhere in the city.

And while everyone should have the right to breathe unpolluted air, the question of how many family tourists or working people this will turn away from the city will take time to answer but economically, every time a smoker is denied the right to smoke within the city, they will most likely move onto an area where they can partake in their legal behaviours of choice.

Calling North Bay a dry county for smokers might be a misnomer but some may suspect that it won’t be long until cities like ours get labelled as dead zones for people who choose to smoke.

Another interesting observation is that the city, now driving people out of open air spaces to smoke cigarettes, is pushing smokers into an even less healthy habit of smoking on busy street sidewalks, indoors, inside of cars and perhaps, helping conceal the behaviour into areas that may not be safe, especially for women and the elderly into back alleys and out of sight from those pushing smoking out of the city.

The only question left is when the city will ban the right of free speech in public parks in order to better educate citizens.

Also, the question of whether the city’s somewhat misconstrued good intentions are actually legal has yet to be determined but it certainly opens a precedent for very questionable legal activities, banning free people from legal behaviours.