City of Melbourne aims to make CBD smoke-free by 2025

A bid for a smoke-free CBD has split the city, with the Lord Mayor unable to say if there would any smoking areas at all under the plan.

Melbourne City Council is considering becoming a smoke-free city by 2025, have your say on the proposed plan.

Melbourne’s Lord Mayor says there may not be any smoking areas for smokers or vapers to light up in the CBD under the council’s “contentious” bid to make the area smoke-free.

And the plan has divided Melburnians, with almost two-thirds slamming the proposal.

The City of Melbourne wants to outlaw smoking “throughout the majority of public spaces” over the next five years. It is also considering banning smoking at council-run and council-permitted events by 2025.

Cr Capp on Friday could not confirm what a smoke-free CBD would mean for smokers.

“I know some of these things are contentious, and it’s important that we always want to have a city where everybody feels welcome and that it’s accessible, also how we balance that with been a healthy community and a healthy city,” Cr Capp said.

“One of the parts of a conversation about a smoke-free city is what does it mean for smokers and there will be lots of strong views coming through on whether and how are the city might go about creating spaces for smokers.”

Cr Capp, when asked if there would always be a place for smokers to light up, said she could not guarantee anything while the proposal waited for community feedback.

“There’s nothing to guarantee of this point because there’s nothing firm that’s been put in place apart from the 12 smoke free zones,” she said.

“There’s nothing that we could say about guarantees one way or the other, we are genuinely at the start of a conversation.”

As of 12pm on Friday, 63 per cent of people had given the smoke-free plan the thumbs down in Leader-Herald Sun poll.

Val Alexander, posting on social media, said she hoped people who thought it was a great idea did not use the city’s underground carparks.

“Personally (I) would prefer an occasional “smell of cigarette smoke” then (sic) 30 seconds in a ‘carcinogenic filled’ car park, she said.

Shazza Dehon said authorities should worry about drugs and alcohol on the streets first, while Dale said he believed it was “an assault on our freedom of choice”.

HAVE YOUR SAY ON MELBOURNE SMOKE-FREE 2025

Smoking and vaping are set to be banned in public spaces across central Melbourne — and the plan has already lit up outrage in some quarters.

A chief proponent of the plan, 2019 Melburnian of the Year Bronwyn King, said authorities “should not rest” until there were no smokers left in Victoria.

“I think Melbourne should absolutely have a vision to ­become a tobacco-free city and at the moment, round about 10 per cent of Victorians and Melburnians are smokers. I think we should not rest until that number is zero,” said Dr King, a radiation oncologist and founder of the group Tobacco Free Portfolios.

But the president of Ratepayers Victoria, Dean Hurlston, fumed: “Is the role of council to create a nanny state? It shouldn’t be.

“If it is going to attack and ban tobacco and vaping, why not alcohol? Where does it stop? People have a right to smoke, because tobacco is not illegal. This is just crazy.”

A Towards Smoke-free Melbourne 2025 discussion paper and draft policy have been released and community consultation has begun.

The paperwork says: “Cities are spaces where people live, work and travel in proximity. Smoking in public places with high population density exposes people to the harms of tobacco smoke.”

It says e-cigarette use or vaping — commonly used to give up traditional smoking — would be included in the planned city-wide ban. Research shows nearly 20 per cent of 18 to 24-year-olds now vape.

There are already 12 smoke-free areas across Melbourne.

“The City of Melbourne recently implemented smoke-free Bourke Street — including Bourke Street Mall — the state’s, first major smoke-free pedestrian thoroughfare.

“This project highlighted growing public and political support for more extensive smoking bans across the central city,” the council plan says.

“While other cities in Australia and around the world begin to plan for more extensive and in some cases citywide smoking bans, it is timely for the City of Melbourne to consider how it will continue to be a leader in protecting the health of the community and reducing the harms of tobacco use and smoking.”

Director of Quit Victoria Sarah White said the council’s proposed ban on both smoking and vaping was “incredibly progressive”.

“An environment in which people are not exposed to second-hand smoke and or second-hand aerosol from e-cigarettes is part of what makes Melbourne a great city to be in. It enhances the amenity as well as health,” she said.

The draft policy will be presented to the Future Melbourne Committee for endorsement in April.

To have your say about plans to reduce smoking in the city and read the policy visit Towards Smoke-free Melbourne 2025.

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