Naples mayor plans to get county legislative delegation involved smoking ban

Publication Date: 2010-11-03

• Author:Jenna Buzzacco-Foerster
• Publication:Naples Daily News

A discussion about whether to ban smoking on Naples beaches could be heading to the state Legislature.

Naples officials said Wednesday they plan to ask the county’s legislative delegation to work with them to change a state law that says who can regulate smoking.

The law --dubbed the Florida Clean Indoor Air Act --has a section that "preempts regulation of smoking to the state and supersedes any municipal or county ordinance on the subject."

That preemption is believed to apply to all smoking laws, said City Attorney Bob Pritt, and it would make it easy to toss out a local law if it was contested in court.

There are at least a dozen local governments in Florida that have banned smoking, Pritt said.

Naples Mayor Bill Barnett said he wanted to request the help of the county’s legislative delegation, rather than going forward with a discussion about whether it was feasible to ban smoking on city beaches.

"This is the real deal," he said. "We want to change the statute, or at least have the Legislature tweak it. We want home rule. We want to make our own decisions."