Aliyya Swaby Photo
Okafor updates public at THursday press conference.
The city is getting better at helping people quit smoking and preventing others from starting the habit.
So reported Harp administration officials Thursday.
They updated the public at City Hall on their effort to make the city tobacco free, six months after passing an ordinance prohibiting the use of tobacco in public spaces.
In mid-May the Board of Alders unanimously passed an ordinance outlawing tobacco products from government buildings, playgrounds, sports fields, school grounds and Lighthouse Park. The city can create and restrict smokers to specific spaces within the public areas.
Better public health means “abstinence” from all tobacco products, Mayor Toni Harp said Thursday. “There is no safe level of exposure to tobacco smoke.”
Over the last year, since convening a taskforce to address the problem, the city has reached more than half its target number of 2,500 adult tobacco users, engaging them in interventions to help them quit smoking. Officials have also ensured 13,615 students — 91 percent of a target 15,000 — are getting tobacco prevention education, so they don’t get addicted, said Martha Okafor, social services director.
Local universities have either made their campuses completely tobacco free or started to ban the substance from certain parts. The Housing Authority of New Haven made Monterey Place tobacco free this past September.
Okafor said the city does not currently have specific plans to extend that ban to all public housing in the city. But a proposed federal law is pending that could require New Haven to implement and enforce a citywide ban in public housing.
“We will take it one step at a time,” Okafor said.