Smoke-free Ballard parks

All Seattle public parks will be smoke-free as of Monday, July 6th. Seattle Parks and Recreation declare: “Smell flowers, not smoke.”

Seattle Parks and Rec views smoke-free parks as a benefit to their mission to provide healthful and welcoming places for all residents to enjoy. This ruling takes effect in Ballard parks including Golden Gardens Park, Salmon Bay Park, Sunset Hill Park, and Ballard Commons Park.

The Seattle Board of Park Commissioners unanimously recommended to approve a parks-wide smoking ban in May. The new rule will expand the existing smoking ban from within 25 feet of another park visitor to no smoking on any publicly accessible park land. This is similar to rules in more than 1,000 other cities and jurisdictions nationwide, including New York, Los Angeles, Boston, Chicago, Portland and San Francisco.

Enforcement of the new rule will primarily be entrusted to Park Rangers and Seattle police officers with the foremost goal of education on smoking’s hazards. For more information about the smoking ban, visit the Seattle Parks and Recreation website here.