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An Ordinance amending Section 1 of Ordinance Number 23-06-OR, approved by Council on September 26, 2006 and signed by the Chief Executive on October 4, 2006, by placing additional information in the Legislative Findings.
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WHEREAS, Allegheny County Ordinance 23-06, which implemented regulations governing smoking in public places in Allegheny County, was signed into law on October 4, 2006; and
WHEREAS, since passage and signing of Ordinance 23-06, the Council has determined that it is desirable to include a specific reference to the 2006 report of the Surgeon General, entitled "The Health Consequences of Involuntary Exposure to Tobacco Smoke;" now, therefore,
The Council of the County of Allegheny hereby enacts as follows:
SECTION 1.
Section 1 of Ordinance 23-06 is hereby amended as follows:
Legislative Findings. The Council finds that:
(a) Tobacco smoke, whether inhaled through smoking or indirectly through exposure to smoky environments contains more than 4,000 known chemical compounds that are released into the air as particles and gases.
(b) According to a 2001 report issued by the National Cancer Institute, there are sixty-nine known or probable carcinogens in tobacco smoke.
(c) In 1999, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) published results of an environmental tobacco smoke study, whose rates applied to Allegheny County population data for 2005 suggest that each year 227 non-smoking residents die from lung cancer as a result of environmental tobacco smoke exposure.
(d) For children, the 1999 EPA report concluded that exposure to secondhand smoke is causally associated with increased risk of lower respiratory tract infections, such as bronchitis and pneumonia; increased prevalence of fluid in the middle ear; and, increased symptoms of upper respiratory tract irritation, is responsible for increases the number of episodes and the severity of sy...
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