Seeing Past the Smoke of MV's Tobacco Scores

For the second year in a row, a local coalition has awarded Mountain View its highest marks in tobacco-control efforts among cities in Santa Clara County.

However, the 'A' given by the Tobacco Free Coalition of Santa Clara County and Community in their "2010-2011 Community's Health on Tobacco Report Card" released on Wednesday, July 27 comes only three months after the second 'D' the city received from the American Lung Association’s State of Tobacco Control Report 2010.

The disparate difference in the two scores may have all to do with what each organization measured.

Tobacco Free Coalition based its grades on the city's tobacco advertising and displays, and preventing youth access to tobacco. They gave points for the compliance rate with window advertising regulations, enforcement of underage tobacco sales laws, and creation of policies requiring a tobacco retailer license.

However, the American Lung Association developed a grading system as a way to let people know the state of tobacco control where they live, explains Serena Chen, American Lung Association Policy Advocacy Director for California. 

It calculated tobacco control as an average of three different areas: smokefree outdoor air, smokefree housing and the reduction of tobacco product sales. Each of these sections got a point, which translates to a letter grade of A through F, with the possibility of bonus points.

Mountain View received a D grade for its outdoor smoking policies with a total of four points. Smoking is currently restricted on public facilities and within outdoor amphitheater seating areas. But could improve if the city limited smoking in:

• Outdoor dining areas
• Entryways like entrances, exits or other openings into enclosed areas
• Service areas where people stand or wait in line, such as public transit stops or ATM lines
• All outdoor public events like fairs, farmer’s markets, parades and concerts
• Parks, beaches, hiking trails or other recreation areas

Mountain View scored an F grade with zero points for its smokefree housing policies. To meet ALA’s recommendations, Mountain View needs municipal codes that:

• Restrict smoke in outdoor common areas in multi-unit housing units, including areas where smoking is allowed
• Designated non-smoking units within multi-unit housing units
• Require landlords of apartments or sellers of condominiums to disclose information about smoking restrictions on the property to potential tenants or buyers

Unlike in the Tobacco Free Coalition report, Mountain View's underaged smoking continued to be a problem and could use some work on reducing tobacco product sales, according to the ALA study. The city scored one point for a grade of D in this area.

The city, however, with the help of funds received from the county has already started work on an update to the tobacco ordinance as a way to improve their ALA grade, according to the City's Youth Resources Manager Kimberly Castro.

Castro explained that, for example, currently the Castro Street restaurants with sidewalk cafe have been issued permits under condition that smoking not be allowed.

"It's not an actual ordinance," Castro said. But Castro added, as the context of a new ordinance takes shapes, possible language includes the ban of smoking within 25 feet of any entrance into a building.

But in contrast again to the Tobacco Free Coalition grades, between 2009 to 2010, no city in Santa Clara County had enacted tighter smoking policies compared to the other 38 California cities that participated in the ALA report.

“There was no way we could go into every city and sniff the air,” says Chen, so the report’s findings are strictly based on city and county municipal codes.

In the Tobacco Free Coalition report San Jose climbed up from an 'F' grade to a 'B' after the city adopted a new tobacco-control policy earlier this year. In addition to Mountain View, Saratoga, and Milpitas also received an 'A.'

Dr. Martin Fenstersheib, the county's health officer, said the
county spends about $830 million annually on treatment of tobacco-related health effects.

Last year the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act awarded Santa Clara County Public Health Department a $6.9 million federal grant for tobacco prevention efforts. The department will use the grant to decrease the prevalence of smoking in the community and conduct efforts to prevent teens from taking up smoking.

The ALA is quick to point out in defense of its rigorous grading system that tobacco is still the No. 1 source of preventable disease and death in California. Tobacco has been shown to cause cancer, heart disease, respiratory diseases and infant death.

Approximately one death out of every five in the U.S. is attributed to smoking each year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported in 2008. An estimated 49,000 of these deaths are caused by secondhand smoke.

“If you believe that passing these laws is a valid way to protect people, you should look at the possibilities," said Serena Chen, ALA policy advocacy director for California.

“It’s not like we’re punishing the cities," she said. "We’re just looking at how cities are protecting the citizens … this is how they compare.”

Additional reporting by Bay City News