New CA law keeps cigarettes unlit
Organizers are hoping that a new law aimed at smoking in
vehicles where children are present will help cut down on the
number of adults who smoke with kids in cars.
New CA law keeps cigarettes unlit
Organizers are hoping that a new law aimed at smoking in vehicles where children are present will help cut down on the number of adults who smoke with kids in cars.
Motorists will risk fines of up to $100 next year if they are caught smoking in cars when minors are present. The law goes into affect Jan. 1, 2008.
California is only the third state to protect children in vehicles from secondhand smoke, according to Nora Jimenez, a health education associate with the San Benito County Health and Human Services Agency.
“This is a problem throughout California,” Jimenez said. “People think that loud music in a vehicle is bad for kids, but they don’t think about [smoking]. The hope is that folks are receptive to this.”
Last week Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a bill, SB-7, which will make it an infraction to smoke in a vehicle if someone under the age of 18 is present. As when the seatbelt law was first enacted, officers will add the fine when they stop people for other violations, such as speeding or illegal turns. They will not pull people over just for smoking with kids in the car if they haven’t broken another law as well.
There has been some controversy surrounding the issue, according to Samela Perez, the public information officer with the San Benito County Health and Human Services Agency. The first time the bill was presented to the Assembly it did not pass. When it was presented a second time, earlier this month, it did.
“If you look at the history of seatbelt laws or bicycle helmet laws they were controversial at the time too,” Perez said.
Nancy Stone, a resident of Hollister is a smoker with children, but does not smoke when her kids are in the car.
“I try not to smoke around my kids,” Stone said. “And never when they’re in the car.”
Stone said the law is unsettling, since it is aimed at controlling what she can do in her own property, but it makes sense.
“I’ve heard it all before,” Stone said. “I know smoking is bad and I’m putting myself at risk when I smoke, but I don’t do it around my kids. The law makes sense.”
The Health and Human Services Agency staff are not advocating for penalizing people needlessly. Rather they are interested in offering programs to help people quit, Jimenez said.
Classes to quit smoking will be offered by the Health and Human Services Agency in the spring of 2008. For more information, call 636-4011 or visit www.sanbenitoco.org.
