Prince George City Council gave first three readings to a bylaw amendment, in order to allow smoking or vaping for theatrical, cinematic, or other artistic performance.
City Council gave the first three meetings at last night’s (Monday) meeting.
According to a staff report to Council, the current bylaw prohibits smoking and vaping in all places of public assembly and City-owned facilities without exception.
“In the past, flexibility has been requested to permit smoking or vaping as part of artistic performances, which caused staff to look into the practice,” said Director of Administrative Services Eric Depeneau.
Depeneau noted some communities, such as Burnaby, Port Coquitlam and Delta, provide exemptions explicitly allowing smoking during theatrical or artistic performances.
“In some instances, this is allowed without prior permission, and in other cases, there is an approval processes, as we are proposing,” he said.
Depeneau noted this would be subject to written approval by the City of Prince George, the Manager of Bylaw Services, or another delegate from the City with authority to provide the exemption.
“This is of course a new process for us, we don’t have past examples to rely on,” he said. “What we’re going to be looking for staff to do is to liaise with groups like the City of Burnaby and the City of Delta that require prior approvals, and work with them on some of those specifics, certainly in the early days as we understand this. We see this being submitted as a written request, and including details that justify why it’s required to further the artistic endeavor, and further that something is provided addressing ventilation, performer safety, notice to attendees, so I think it will be a fairly high level of scrutiny that we’re applying.”
City Council gave unanimous approval to the first three readings of the bylaw update.
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