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An Ordinance amending and supplementing the Allegheny County Code of Ordinances, Division 5, entitled "Health and Sanitation," through the creation of a new Chapter 580, entitled "Allegheny County Certified Smoke Free Program," in order to provide a means for the County's residents to identify nonsmoking food or beverage establishments, workplaces, and other facilities.
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WHEREAS, Many studies have found that tobacco smoke is a major contributor to indoor air pollution and that exposure to secondhand smoke is a cause of many serious health diseases in adult non-smokers and children; and
WHEREAS, the Council of Allegheny County wishes to provide the County's residents with a means of identifying nonsmoking facilities;
The Council of the County of Allegheny hereby enacts as follows:
SECTION 1. 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 symptoms ...
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