Park commissioner Raj Hundal says a total ban on smoking is an option.

Nick Losito of Vancouver Coastal Health has been a tireless campaigner against smoking.

At the end of March, Losito is retiring as regional director of health protection, and he’s extremely pleased that the Vancouver park board is determined to curtail smoking in parks and on beaches, playing fields, and trails.

“That would be a nice retirement present,” Losito told the Georgia Straight in a phone interview. “It’s long overdue.”

Vancouver park commissioner Raj Hundal can’t say yet to what extent smoking will be restricted in public areas. The park board had expected to deal with this long-standing subject on February 1, but this was pushed back for another meeting.

According to Hundal, options include the designation of smoking zones within public areas and a total ban on smoking.

“I think it’s safe to say, though, that there will be some sort of regulation in place,” Hundal told the Straight by phone.

The board has strong public support for the antismoking initiative.

A staff presentation before the board’s planning-and-environment committee last year about the results of an on-line survey noted that only seven percent of 608 respondents stated that they would use parks less if smoking restrictions were put in place.

The remaining respondents, according to minutes of the December 12, 2009, meeting, “thought the restriction would not create behavioural change or would increase their use of the park system”.

Survey results also showed that 74 percent believed that the park board “should take a leadership role to provide clean, smoke-free air”. Of the respondents, 90 percent were nonsmokers, like Hundal, and 10 percent identified themselves as tobacco smokers.

The board can also count on science to support a move to restrict public smoking. According to the Canadian Cancer Society, secondhand smoke contains more than 4,000 chemicals, many of which are known to cause cancer. These chemicals include carbon monoxide, ammonia, cadmium, cyanide, mercury, and arsenic.

Each year, according to the group’s Web site, more than 1,000 nonsmoking Canadians die from diseases associated with secondhand smoke.

The site also explains that although a cigarette produces about 12 minutes of smoke, a smoker may inhale only 30 seconds of that smoke, while the rest stays in the air for nonsmokers and smokers alike to breathe.

The association advises children, pregnant women, older people, and people with heart or breathing problems to avoid secondhand smoke. It also notes that secondhand smoke can trigger asthma attacks, increase one’s risk of contracting bronchitis and pneumonia, and exacerbate allergies.

A smoking regulation would lessen tensions between smokers and nonsmokers, a matter that Iram Zaidi knows well.

A Kitsilano resident, Zaidi regularly frequents the beach in her neighbourhood with friends, and she’s the type who doesn’t hide her displeasure about inhaling secondhand smoke.

“At times I make a face and the person gets an understanding and they try to blow the smoke from my face,” Zaidi told the Straight. “I think some people are just insensitive.”

Hundal said that the park board hopes smokers and nonsmokers can agree on one expected beneficial result of the prohibition: no more cigarette butts on the beaches.

The Vision park commissioner related that machinery used to clean up beaches cannot pick up these stubs, which have to be collected manually. “We’ve been told that it’s hours and hours of labour-intensive work,” he said.

According to Hundal, the board expects to make a decision about smoking restrictions later this month.