Bonita Springs, FL Outdoor Cooking: Smoker Rules (2026)

The Bonita Springs Code never uses the word smoker. What it prints is a two-part test for outdoor cooking fires in Sec. 22-45(2): the fire must be contained in a grill, camping stove, or similar device designed solely for cooking food, and it must burn only approved fuel. The purpose has to be the sole purpose of cooking food for human consumption. The lead-in to Sec. 22-45 adds that every exception applies only when conducted in a manner which is not a nuisance or an unsafe fire.

Approved fuel means clean wood, charcoal, commercially available fire starter logs or briquettes, liquefied petroleum gas, natural gas, or butane. Clean wood is dry natural wood that has not been painted, varnished, or coated, is not pressure treated with preservatives, contains no resins or glues as in plywood or composite wood products, and has a moisture content favorable to burning and to minimize smoke. A grill is a device designed and used for cooking where a combustion source is elevated off the ground and food is cooked over open flame or coals using an approved fuel.

Smoke is where cooking fires draw complaints. The code defines a nuisance as sparks, ash, smoke or odor that interfere with the reasonable use and enjoyment of property by other people, including a leasehold interest, or that create an unreasonable health hazard to them. Officers weigh wind, fog, air quality, the size of the parcel, where the fire sits, how much smoke, odor and ash it makes, and the sensitivity of others to smoke due to conditions such as asthma, allergies and respiratory impairments. Cooking fires are the one category Sec. 22-44(3) leaves open when the fire chief or the Florida Forest Service has issued a burning ban. Under Sec. 22-44(5), the more restrictive rule applies whenever another law conflicts.