Kelowna City Council is in no hurry to expand its current smoking policy. 

Photo: Trevor Rockliffe - Castanet

In October, 2010, council moved to ban smoking from all parks and beaches. The exception is larger parks where designated smoking areas have been set up.

This is on top of bylaw creating designated smoking areas at Kelowna International Airports.

Monday morning, Council reviewed a joint letter from the BC Heart and Stroke Foundation and the BC Lung Association, asking it to place further restrictions on where people can and can't smoke.

One of those are public service patios.

Kelowna Mayor, Walter Gray, says council believes Kelowna has actually moved the boundaries to discourage smoking through bylaws more than the average city in BC.

That being said, Gray says council did agree to send a letter to the BC Restaurant Association and the Downtown Kelowna Association to get their feelings on a smoking ban on public patios.

"We felt because restaurants have been through considerable regulation, change and a recession that maybe it's more than they can really stand at this time," says Gray.

"But council seems to be generally satisfied they have gone as far as they need to, certainly at this time."

Gray says if restaurants feel it's important to ban smoking on patios then it's something council will consider.

"If they suggest we should stay out of their difficult business at this time we'll simply put this on hold for at least a year. We'll see if the restaurant industry chooses to give us any direction."

Either way, Gray says it's an issue council will likely look at again a year from now.

The two health agencies made several recommendations along with a smoking ban on patios.

These included:

• Banning smoking in all transit and vehicle for hire shelters 
• Banning smoking within at least 7.5 metres from all doors, windows and air intakes of places of public assembly and at least 7.5 metres from public patios and transit and vehicle for hire shelters
• Ban smoking at designated public events such as parades and fairs
• Removing the provision of designated smoking areas in parks that currently exists in city bylaws.

"Consensus was that there has been quite a movement in that area with respect to smoking so far from the entrance of buildings," says Gray.

"We've strengthened that bylaw in Kelowna, more punitive to smokers. That's where we are at."