There will now be “tobacco-free spaces” in front of Bordeaux schools. The city banned smoking on Thursday morning near schools, a “protective measure” that the ecological mayor Pierre Hurmic wishes to extend around nurseries, colleges and high schools in a second step.
The municipal decree signed on Wednesday provides for a ban on smoking within a perimeter of 50 meters around the entrance to schools in the city, from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. The device materialized by panels will be gradually deployed. “And this ban will be recalled in the children’s liaison book” for parents, added the mayor.
Secondly, the municipality wishes to extend the measure to nurseries and early childhood establishments, then to colleges and high schools, in consultation with the department and the region.
“A measure with an especially educational aim”
Launched on the occasion of the “tobacco-free month”, this device responds to a proposal from the League against cancer to participate in the “denormalization” of tobacco use. “More than a prohibition measure, it is above all a protective measure”, underlined Pierre Hurmic, who also intends to fight against cigarette butts in the street and “a form of air pollution responsible for passive smoking” .
For parents and other adult offenders, it will cost them theoretically 15 euros, but initially, the mayor “hopes to avoid fines”. “It is a measure with an especially educational aim,” he added.
An agreement, signed in 2019 between the city of Bordeaux and the League Against Cancer already provided for this measure, proposed in 2018 by the elected socialist, former minister and oncologist Michèle Delaunay but it had never been concretized by a regulatory act.