Stogie News: Golf Course Smoking Bans Spreading

Spokane, Washington ran into some resistance recently when it’s public officials attempted to expand the city’s already expansive outdoor smoking ban to include municipal golf courses. Only after “an outcry from players and smoking rights advocates” did the city council back off on its attempt to ban cigar smoking on the city golf course. At least for now.

Ban advocates on the city council said they’d “wait for people to calm down” before trying to pass the bill again, possibly in a year or so. Apparently they see no connection between the lack of “calm” and their action to sever the longstanding link between golf and cigars.

Many professional golfers, including Rocco Mediate, Davis Love III, and Darren Clarke, are cigar smokers who will take their stogies on the course with them. Spanish golfer Miguel Ángel Jiménez (pictured), winner of 18 professional tournaments, is often seen playing tournaments with a Cohiba.

Amateur golfers are even more likely to light up a cigar, given that, for them, the golf course is simply a place to relax and have fun, not a job. In fact, with it’s open spaces and generally smoke-friendly attitude, the golf course may be the ideal place to smoke a cigar. But that doesn’t mean anti-tobacco advocates aren’t trying to ban smoking on the golf course, and even with some success.

While the Spokane golf course ban failed, such a ban would hardly be unique. Jurisdictions in Hawaii, California, Colorado, Indiana, Texas, and Minnesota have already pushed smoking bans to include the greens, fairways, tee boxes, and bunkers of local golf courses. A public smoking ban that covered Torrey Pines, host to last year’s U.S. Open, meant that spectators were banned from smoking, although golfers were still permitted to smoke.

Patrick Reynolds, the turncoat heir to the R.J. Reynolds tobacco fortune who is now a spokesman for the Foundation for a Smokefree America, stated that the golf course smoking ban was “cutting edge” but “reasonable.” He also told a local reporter that the law would combat litter.

With statements like that, it seems that there is likely to be many more fights over outdoor golf course smoking bans in the coming months and years.

-Patrick S

photo credit: Timeinc.net