Children's posters declare parks tobacco-free zones
By Tom Vogt, The Columbian Staff Writer
Monday, November 21, 2005
Tobacco-free parks started, as so many of Maureen Pedone's projects do, with a story.
"I had seen a woman with a cigarette in her mouth, pushing a child in a swing" at a local playground, Pedone said.
Pedone's immediate reaction was, "We need to not have people smoking around kids," and the Vancouver storyteller had a platform to turn that notion into a policy.
"When I got the idea, I was chair of the parks commission, and the parks commission bought it," she said.
So did the Vancouver City Council and the Clark County commissioners. Now the Vancouver-Clark Parks and Recreation Department is posting all its outdoor recreation sites as voluntary tobacco-free zones.
The brightly painted 18-by-24-inch signs asking, "Please keep our park tobacco free" are a spinoff of another Pedone project. She works in an after-school program put together by the city and the Evergreen and Vancouver school districts.
In addition to books and stories, "We always have a community project. Every kid has a gift to give the community, and a right to be heard," Pedone said. She told the children, "You guys should put the message out."
About 90 children made posters, and five designs were chosen to carry that message on 300 signs that are being posted on city and county parks, beaches, playgrounds, ball fields and other outdoor recreation sites.
Two of the young artists will have their designs displayed in their own neighborhood parks. The sign created by Maddie Finley, a Hough Elementary student, will be posted in Esther Short Park, near her home. Allyson Anderson, a Fruit Valley Elementary student, will have her sign posted at Fruit Valley Park.
A pair of $10,000 grants from Steps to a Healthier Clark County and the Clark County Health Department paid for the signs, posts and hardware.
The voluntary tobacco-free approach is working elsewhere, according to health officials. Eleven communities in Snohomish County, including Everett and Marysville, initiated similar programs four years ago.
"The public is responding well," said Atahualpa Martinez, with the Snohomish Health District.
The program's success has been measured in community surveys, Martinez, said.
"The biggest selling point is children. People want to protect their children," said Martinez, a tobacco-prevention health educator. "But we also found out from our maintenance people that this minimizes the amount of garbage. That's a positive change we didn't anticipate, and that turned out to be a big seller with the cities."
Even a voluntary policy posted on a "Tobacco Free" sign does give a mom some support if second-hand smoke is drifting toward her kids.
"It gives people the idea that they can ask a person to smoke away from children, and smokers don't want to be smoking around a child," Martinez said.
"We are not being a police organization," Pedone said. "We are making it voluntary, and hope we won't have parents hanging around ball fields smoking while their kids are playing."
Toni Wise, spokeswoman for the Clark-Vancouver Parks and Recreation Department, said the city will see if people follow a voluntary policy.
"Our city council wants to see if it works, and if not, then phase in something stronger," Wise said.
University of Minnesota researchers in 2004 looked at more than 60 Minnesota communities with similar tobacco-free park policies. In a survey of park directors, 71 percent reported less smoking in parks and 58 percent reported cleaner park areas; 88 percent reported no reduction of park use. Seventy percent of Minnesota adults surveyed supported tobacco-free parks, as did 73 percent of families with children.
While second-hand smoke is a big factor, the parks policy also addresses the issue of role models, Pedone said.
"One risk factor is community norms. If kids see people smoking in great numbers in public, they get the message that smoking is OK," Pedone said.
There is a range of tobacco-free park policies around the country, including a focus on "high-kid areas" such as playgrounds, pools and ball fields.
Pedone said she can live with that. If a couple of people want to sit on a secluded park bench for a smoke break, "they have every right to. It's not against the law. We're not saying they can't come in," Pedone said.
"But we want them to be aware that their smoke around kids can have a bad effect, and it doesn't set a good example."
And it's just possible this whole conversation might help someone stop smoking. It turns out that Pedone has a story for that, too.
"When I started this project, I was a smoker," Pedone said.
She stopped because of the mixed messages going through her own mind.
"There was no way I could stand up and promote this, and then puff in secret," Pedone said.
Update
Previously: A teen anti-tobacco group worked to get some local parks posted as voluntary smoke-free zones.
What's new: Vancouver and Clark County have declared their outdoor recreation areas as voluntarily tobacco-free.
What's next: The city and county will post 113 parks, 51 youth baseball-softball facilities and 40 soccer sites.