Background 

As part of a course at Shakopee High School, groups of students were assigned a variety of issues and tasked with coming up with policy based solutions to solve the issue. For several months in the spring a group of student worked on looking at what precedents existed for establishing an ordinance to ban smoking in public parks. The group of students assembled a presentation, which is attached to this report, that outlined what would be needed to accomplish this.

At the same time, the City was approached by Scott County Public Health Department Staff who also advocated that we adopt such an ordinance. Savage is currently the only other city in Scott County which has smoke-free parks, however in Minnesota 177 public agencies have adopted smoke-free policies in public parks. 

Policy Recommendation

Staff asks for any feedback related to a smoke-free parks ordinance. Attached is a document provided by the Scott County Public Health staff which includes several example ordinances. Ordinance language brought by Staff to the City Council would be similar in nature to these examples.