Since Wednesday June 26, smoking has been prohibited at the Patte d’oie park in Reims (Marne). The main objective of the municipality is to prevent the risk of passive smoking among young people.
Tobacco is taboo, we will all get rid of it… Since Wednesday June 26, 2024, the formula is no longer just that of the film The Peers strangers. It also applies to a new tobacco-free space in Reims (Marne).
Smoking is no longer allowed in the Patte d’oie park, classified as a Remarkable Garden. This is in particular to reduce the risks of passive smoking among children (and others) in public spaces. The measure had already been applied, on a larger scale, in Strasbourg (Bas-Rhin).
This ban is materialized by a large sign streaked with white and apple green, marked Tobacco-free zone. There are already some in front of a few schools in Reims, and there are plans to add around twenty more by November. That of the Patte d’oie was inaugurated just after the general assembly of the League against cancer at the adjoining convention center, which reminds us that smoking parents have a 40% risk of seeing their children follow their example (see on the map below).
Marie Depaquy is the deputy (UDI) in charge of health. She told France 3 Champagne-Ardenne that “Within this park, we don’t smoke. It’s a ban. For the moment, we’re just sending a prevention message about smoking to children and parents. It’s also an ecological message, and children are sensitive to that. It’s through children that the messages get across.”
Banning smoking is actually aimed at preventing cigarette butts from being thrown into the environment: this pollutes the water a lot. However, “the city of Reims is not going to become a city without tobacco”, unlike city centres of large foreign capitals.
“It’s about this park, which is enclosed and has a nice play area. The law already requires that these play areas be smoke-free. Here, we wanted symbolically that it be the whole park, so that the message is easily understood by people.” The ban also applies to electronic cigarettes.
