Smoking outdoors on Main Street in Cañon City could become a fineable offense if the city council there moves forward with a proposal to ban the activity in its historic downtown.

The issue was brought to the council by Kathy Schumacher, a Main Street business owner, and was discussed at the city’s General Government Committee meeting on May 6.

Councilman Jimmy Characky was the most vocal council supporter of a full ban – he initially advocated banning smoking in the entire Central Business District of the city, an area extending well beyond Main Street.

Main Street merchants have complained about large groups of people smoking on the sidewalks and the smoke affecting their businesses and customers, Characky told The Colorado Statesman.

He said he had taken a picture of one of the city’s flower pots early in the spring, prior to flowers being planted, and it was filled with cigarette butts.

“This is kind of a defining moment,” Characky said. “Are we a community of smokers or a community of non-smokers?”

The issue was brought to city council shortly after the city’s annual Music and Blossom Festival, which includes a parade on Main Street.

“After the parade there was just thousands of cigarette butts all over the ground,” said Cañon City Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Lisa Hyanes. “I had just finished flowering Main Street. The number of cigarettes stuffed in the flower pots was amazing.”

Hyanes said at one point on Main Street, near one of the town’s bars, she was forced to walk in the street to go around a large group of smokers on the sidewalk, many of whom were intoxicated.

“I’m a firm believer in Uncle Sam not being in your hip pocket, but there’s also a common courtesy to the business owners,” she told The Statesman.

Schumacher, owner of Off the Top salon, brought the issue to the city council.

Schumacher said she moved her salon from a location on 4th Street to the 400 block of Main Street in the winter months. Her new location is next door to Lola’s bar.

“We have beautiful weather,” she said. “During the nice days I like to have my door open.”

But, she said, that has become impossible due to a large group – between 14 and 15 of the bar’s regulars – that gather outside her door to smoke at about 15-minute intervals.

“It’s a detriment to the people walking on Main Street,” she said. “There’s nothing anybody can do about it.”

In 2006, the Colorado General Assembly passed the Colorado Clean Indoor Air Act, which prohibited smoking inside most public buildings and businesses – “cigar-tobacco bars” that generated at least 5 percent of their total annual gross income from the on-site sale of tobacco products and rental of on-site humidors were exempt from the ban. One bar in Cañon City – My Brother’s Place – is such an establishment.One provision of the CCIAA allows local municipalities to set a specified radius around building entryways where smoking is not permitted. If municipalities failed to designate a radius, the statute automatically specified a radius of 15 feet.

At the time, the city council in Cañon City chose not to implement any kind of radius on its entryways.

“Our city council back then was very concerned that if we had [the 15-foot radius] it would force smokers either into the street or in front of other businesses,” City Attorney John Havens told The Statesman. He added it is within the power of the current city council to impose a radius now.

Cañon City was one of several small cities that chose not implement a radius at the time the CCIAA went into effect.

Some of those cities have since gone back and implemented radiuses, Schumacher said. Other cities have gone back and expanded the radius they originally implemented.

Fort Collins recently expanded its smoking restrictions with changes going into effect later this year. The city’s prohibition will be expanded to the downtown area, including Old Town Square, in January 2016. Smoking will be prohibited in all city owned or operated facilities and their grounds as well as parks, trails and natural areas beginning in September. Most city-approved events and festivals will not allow smoking beginning in the 2016 event season.

Cañon City Administrator Doug Dotson told The Statesman there is another factor in the council’s consideration of a potential smoking ban.The city recently put a plan in place for developing the downtown area, which includes widening the sidewalks.

“The idea was to make more room for pedestrians and to bring restaurant space out on the sidewalk,” Dotson said. “The sidewalk cafés sort of compounds the issue.”

He said the city staff will be working on putting together options for smoking restrictions between now and when the council meetings in June.”The biggest concern is the idea of people congregating,” he said.

“I spoke frankly,” Characky said of expressing his support at the committee hearing. “My real goal was to give the non-smokers some protection and some rights as a non-smoker.”

The majority of those who spoke to The Statesman said they didn’t support completely banning smoking from Main Street.

“If someone can find a spot on Main Street where they’re not bothering anybody, that’s fine,” Characky said. “I want to protect the non-smokers.”

Schumacher said the ideal solution for her would be if her neighbors would set up an area behind the building to allow people to smoke without bothering her business.

“What I’ve gotten to this point working with these people is nothing,” she said. “I’m going the legal way now.”

Characky said now that he has spoken his piece at the General Government Committee meeting it is time for him to listen.

“When I vote, I’ll have both sides in mind,” he said. “My vote will count.”

“I don’t know how it’s going to play out,” Dotson said.

“I did not realize what I was doing when I started this,” Schumacher said. “I’ve kind of become the catalyst, because I kind of started it. I’m proud to do it. It’s just turned into a big mess.”

– Rachel@coloradostatesman.com