By: Penny McCaslin, Tobacco Program Coordinator
Thank You Mason City Park Board!
The Cerro Gordo County Department of Public Health would like to show our support for the City of Mason City’s resolution to prohibit tobacco use in child play areas throughout the City parks. This is a huge step in further protecting our children from the dangers of tobacco and nicotine.
Cigarette filters are the most littered item in the world. Thousands of calls are made each year to American Poison Control Centers regarding children poisoned by ingesting cigarette butts. The prevalence of liquid nicotine use in electronic cigarettes and vapor products poses further concern. The small vials of various fun flavored potions could put children more at risk for lethal poisoning. An amount less than a teaspoon can make a child extremely ill. Poison centers are reporting a recent increase in calls about exposures to e-cigarette devices and liquid nicotine. The more we can do to prevent tobacco and nicotine use in areas our children are active, the better!
Many would argue that “it’s outdoors so what’s it hurt?” Well, the U.S. Surgeon General has concluded there is no safe level of secondhand smoke exposure and NO SAFE CIGARETTE. Outdoors is no exception to this rule. Secondhand smoke levels in outdoor public places can reach levels as high as those found in indoor facilities where smoking is permitted.
Parks are built to promote healthy activity for the whole family and Mason City has a great parks and recreation system! We congratulate the Parks Board for passing this measure and showing their support for keeping our children’s play areas tobacco free. We encourage the community to go out and enjoy the parks with children in mind.
https://youtu.be/JnB5-Y2QZ0c
Ahh, more government regulations in the name of the public good. Judging by several of the comments regarding other things that should be banned in public parks and areas, perhaps it would be easier and/or more effective to create a licensing board for all public recreation areas. For a modest fee, we could all apply for permits to use these public areas. Obviously, people with questionable behaviors, ie, smoking, tattoos, ccw, confederate flag displays, or other socially unacceptable behaviors would be denied. As a bonus, we would be creating good local jobs, as we would need additional clerks to process the permits, and park guards to ensure no unlicensed persons are using these…
Cigarettes smoking should be encouraged in parks, that way the children will know about smoking, that way the kids know that they have options in life, and one of those options is to smoke if they like.
Kuddo’s to the park board for instrumenting this policy!! Now let’s take it a step farther and ban drinking in the parks. I have taken my grandchildren to the parks to play to smell the smoke in the air and on people’s clothing, so strongly it made me ill. What does it do to a child? Parks are made for strengthening relationships with other adults & parents or grandparents with children. They should not be accustomed to adults drinking, smelling like alcohol, the cussing, loud talking/escalating disagreements & even fighting at times all due to the alcohol. Let the little children have their parks to run, play & laugh in. Let them be little children without the outside world…
influencing this kind of behaviour. There are bars in town that allow drinking, but will not allow children to be there. If people want to drink, they can do to a back (an already designated place to drink) If you want a party with alcohol, then have it at someone’s home away from the little children.
Park Board: Please incorporate no alcohol in the park also. Let’s do everything possible to get the generations coming up under us a fighting chance to make them accountable to themselves. Possibly this would be the start of raising the youth under us to not drink, not smoke, not to carry weapons & wouldn’t that be a great improvement for the whole city.
@God-Maybe I misunderstood but I thought there already was a rule against drinking in the park except for special functions.
LVS, there’s a sign on the shelter houses stating that only beer and wine (not hard liquor) are allowed in the park. It doesn’t say anything about it having to be a special occasion.
Then they should ban it all. I am not one for government interfering in our lives but that just makes sense. To many underaged people in the parks drining.
Spent time at the carnival in Clear Lake yesterday. The smell from cigarettes was everywhere. Yes, it’s outside, but with that many people in one place you can’t get away from the smoke. Surprises me that CL still allows this.
On another (half-way joking) note, I think it’s time for a dress code in the park. Honestly, some people were barely dressed and were parading around like they were really something to look at. I know it’s close to the lake but how difficult is it to throw on a cover-up?
One of the biggest lies the Republicans try to pass off is that they are for smaller government. They actively campaign of passing Constitutional Amendments that would define traditional marriage. They pass laws in attacking the right for a woman to have an abortion, requiring ultrasounds or transvaginal probes.
They have stood up for U.S. government policies of widespread surveillance, indefinite detention without trial, torture, and extraordinary rendition. They have supported government subsidies for agricultural and fossil fuel industries, religious institutions, government restrictions on immigration and free passage across international boundaries, government denial of collective…
…bargaining rights for public sector workers.
Of course, they support biggest part of the U.S. government, the military. This is where 57 percent of U.S. tax dollars currently go. A Republican Party that wanted to limit government would be eager to cut funding for this bloated giant.
Admittedly, there is plenty of GOP support for small government when it comes to cutting taxes on the wealthy, limiting regulation of big business, gutting environmental regulations, weakening legal protections for workers and racial minorities, and slashing government funding for public education, public health, and social welfare services.
The fact is, Republicans love government. Well, as long as…
…that government is supporting something they want. The only time they’re advocates for “small government” is when the government forces them to do things like — give people civil rights.
Just what the hell do all you lies and mis-representations have to do with this subject. You are just a Libraturd pinhead.
Oh, it’s my response to your falsehood about being for smaller government
You don’t have a response and never have had. Just more pinheaded, libraturd B.S.
Goody two shoes.
I don’t smoke so I really don’t care much if they ban smoking and I hate those butts thrown around. However, I do not believe that B.S. that smoking outside effects other people. In a closed environment, yes, but outdoors, that is a made up lie. You are just making criminals out of honest people. If you really want to do something get after the kids that are smoking. I see them every single day walking down the street smoking.
Get after the diesel truck and cars and all the businesses that are pumping crap into the air. Look to the North and you will see Lehigh doing it every day. And of course from time to time we get ViCore and the Bean Plant. Then of course we have dump trucks driving down the road untarped as well as corn trucks in the fall. Why just go after smokers? If they all quit they will scream like hell because all that tax money will be gone. Just like with cars. They are more efficient and now they raise the tax because we are not burning as much. Bull S### Government.
Making criminals out of honest people? Could not have said it better regarding marijuana arrests.
And let’s not forget about those loud pipes. Make sure we go after those pesky bikers and their pipes!! Ha, just kidding.
Great measure! A park is to be enjoyed by all, and if nonsmokers are having to breathe in a smokers cigarette smoke – that’s a problem. Glad Mason City is taking so many steps to clean up the city.
Well I guess you better ban all these factories from polluting the air too. What about some of these council members every time they open their pie hole is polluting the air.
I fully support the right to smoke, just dont exhale your poison in the air that others breathe.
WHEW!!!!! Thank God we have these people around to protect us from evil cigarette smokers. I knew somebody was smoking the other day when I was out wandering around in the woods. They had to be cause I could smell it. I probably have the cancer now.
Amen Allen. They drive around and throw the butts out the window. Make all city and county vehicles no smoking.
Way to go P&R. Now the city needs to stop it’s employees from smoking in city vehicles, and on city property.
@Allen-That sounds fair to me. It is their work place and there is no smoking allowed in the workplace. That should go for the nasty habit of chewing too.