After a change in state law, which gave cities and counties the discretion to pass such an ordinance, Sarasota County and the city of Clearwater banned smoking at their beaches.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Florida law allows counties and municipalities to restrict smoking in county-owned public parks and beaches.<\/strong> The law does not apply to unfiltered cigars. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Sarasota County, Florida has a smoking ban that went into effect on October 1, 2023. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The ban applies to all county-owned beaches, beach access points, parks, natural areas, and youth athletic and play areas. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The county is updating park signage and educating the public about the change. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In Sarasota County those who break the law can face a fine of up to $74. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The Florida Legislature enacted House Bill (HB) 105 on July 1, 2022, which amended part II of Chapter 386, Florida Statutes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cOutdoors should be a smoke-free zone. It is a public facility,\u201d said Commissioner George Lindsey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Commissioner Lindsey said he was presented with the idea for the ban by a youth group called \u201cSWAT,\u201d Students Working Against Tobacco.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He worked with the county attorney and sheriff\u2019s office to get it on the agenda next week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cNobody\u2019s going to get arrested for doing it but it\u2019s giving the public notice and adding a little peer pressure to behave in a responsible manner around kids in open air,\u201d said Commissioner Lindsey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The public hearing on the smoking ban is scheduled for Tuesday at the regular county commission meeting in Bartow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Following in the footsteps of other Tampa Bay area cities and counties, Polk County may make public and county-owned parks smoke-free after a vote next week. Next Tuesday, following a public… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":38321,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"{title}\n\n{excerpt}\n\n{url}","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":71799,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[14],"tags":[6584],"class_list":["post-38320","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-polk-county-commissioners-to-consider-making-public-county-owned-parks-smoke-free"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38320","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38320"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38320\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38321"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38320"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/County_No_Smoking_Sign_r1080x720-1024x683.jpg\")
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