City of Melbourne’s plan to ban smoking in the CBD by 2025

The City of Melbourne council is pushing to ban smoking and vaping in public spaces across the CBD within five years.

The council is also considering outlawing smoking at council-run and permitted events by 2025.

Director of Quit Victoria, Sarah White, welcomed the push, but says the smoking rate in the CBD is already quite low.

“The daily smoking rate in Victoria is about 11.6 per cent but probably in metro Melbourne it’s lower than that because we know there’s more smoking in rural and regional areas,” she told Ross and Russel.

Ms White says she believes a total smoking ban in public spaces would be welcomed by most people.

“90 per cent of people don’t smoke and we hear loud and clear from people all the time, they really hate breathing in cigarette smoke,” she said.

The City of Melbourne has released a discussion paper and draft policy on the plan to outlaw smoking, and community consultation is under way.

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