Mesilla Amends Smoking Pollution Ordinance to Make Mesilla Restaurants 100% smokefree!

Source: New Mexicans Concerned About Tobacco
August 14, 2000

The Mesilla Board of Trustees voted tonight to amend the 1995 Mesilla Smoking Pollution Ordinance to make Mesilla restaurants smokefree. The amendment also requires bar areas of restaurants to either go smokefree or be 100% separately enclosed or ventilated.

There is a six-month phase-in period. The final vote was three to one, with one abstaining, but that is somewhat misleading, since all five members of the Board favored a strong amendment that made restaurants smokefree, and the only debate was over whether the bar areas of restaurants should have to be 100% separately enclosed and ventilated or only 90% separately enclosed.

The fact that this was the issue that was being discussed shows how far the Board has come in the five years since the original Ordinance was passed.

Thanks to all the Tobacco Free Las Cruces Coalition members and others who worked to make this happen -- including some who have been advocating for this intermittently for the past five years. Everyone should feel proud of themselves. This is New Mexico's second strong clean indoor air ordinance within three weeks, after Carlsbad.