CITY
Glendale’s first-ever smoking ban earned the city top honors in the American Lung Assn. of California’s annual report card released Tuesday.
Glendale received the only A grade in a field of 88 Los Angeles County cities included in the association’s 2008 State of Tobacco Control Report Card, which tracks and rates the efforts of municipalities in their efforts to curb secondhand smoke and access to tobacco products.
The precipitous climb from a C grade last year usurped Burbank, Baldwin Park and even smoke-free stalwart Calabasas, which for 2008 was bumped down a notch to the B level.
City officials said the announcement validated the four months of public debate and political posturing that consumed City Hall last year as the City Council worked to pass an ordinance in October that restricted smoking on nearly all publicly accessible property.
In determining the grades, the American Lung Assn. did not necessarily look at how the laws were being enforced, instead focusing on the extent to which municipal laws restricted smoking outdoors, in multiunit housing and in tobacco sales. Point values were assigned according to how restrictive each city’s laws were in 14 sub-categories.
After the American Lung Assn.’s announcement, Jonathan Fielding, director of the county Department of Public Health, lauded Glendale’s comprehensive ordinance where other cities, such as Los Angeles, have taken a more staggered approach.
Of the 10 most populous cities in the county, three received a grade of F, and three others got a D. Los Angeles, with a population of more than 4 million, got a C, as did the second largest city, Long Beach, which claims 492,912 residents.
Glendale is the county’s third-largest city, with a population of roughly 207,000. Of the 88 cities surveyed in the association’s 2008 report, 54 received an F.
The City Council voted to immediately impose a 45-day moratorium on all wireless cellular antennas in residential neighborhoods, sending the issue into uncharted territory as City Hall turns its attention to developing an overall city policy for telecommunications facilities.
The council also voted to hire two communications law firms to assist the city with developing a possible ordinance that could establish a city review process for all future cellular antenna applications.
