Local anti-smoking officials approved a new law in Big Island that will ban smoking in a car if a kid is present.

The new bill was signed on May 10 by Mayor Billy Kenoi and it will be enforced on August 8. The new regulation prohibited smoking not only in cars but also in public buildings, county parks and even restaurants and bars.

The new measure has only one aim - to protect minors from secondhand cigarettes smoke. So, Hawaii County is the second-largest local power in the country to prohibit smoking when minors are in a vehicle and the only one in the state to accept smoking bans so far, declared Deborah Zysman, executive director of the Coalition for a Tobacco-Free Hawaii. “Our children will be healthier and Hawaii inhabitants will save a lot of money in health care prices connecting to smoking,” Zysman added recently.

Big Island is very much influenced by cigarettes because asthma disease is highest in Hawaii County. So, the most important at the moment is “to reduce our children’s exposure to secondhand smoke,” reported Sally Ancheta, Hawaii Island program coordinator with the American Lung Association in Hawaii. But the mayor’s director assistant, Hunter Bishop, said: “It may be very problematic to enforce a smoking ban in cars, such as in vehicles with tinted windows, but police will be urging it as best they can.”

Even doctors reported that smoking should be banned especially in cars where young people are present because secondhand smoke is as harmful as smoking a cigarette.

Many people especially smokers are not agree with the new legislation. For example, a regular smoker declared: “Adults could make a mistake on the side of caution when young children are in the car, but a ban is far too heavy-handed. Our fear is that this is a hard step to prohibiting smoking in all cars, regardless of whether children are on board. Many cars are private spaces, like the home. Are we going to ban smoking at home too?”

Parents should protect their kid only by stopping smoking around them especially in enclosed places like their cars and in their homes, concluded local anti-smoking officials.