VENTURA : District May Impose Total Smoking Ban

If the school board goes along with the recommendation of Supt. Joseph Spirito, smoking will be banned at all property belonging to the Ventura Unified School District.

Spirito made the recommendation at a board meeting Tuesday night. If approved by the board in two weeks, the no-smoking policy would take effect in January, 1994, in buildings and September, 1994, in outdoor areas, including football stadiums.

While students haven’t been allowed to smoke on campus for years, some of the 23 schools in the district still have smoking areas for teachers and staff members. With the new policy, even district vehicles would be off-limits for smoking.

District officials said Tuesday they may offer smoking-cessation programs to their 1,500 employees.

To fulfill the terms of an agreement with the state, the district is required to have a no-smoking policy in effect by June, 1996, but it decided to implement the policy two years earlier to avoid the possibility of being sued by people exposed to second-hand smoke, district officials said.

Since 1989, the district has received $327,000 from a state program to reduce tobacco consumption in California. The funds from the program were generated by Proposition 99, which in 1988 added a 24-cent tax to a pack of cigarettes.