Tucson, AZ Outdoor Cooking: Smoker Rules (2026)

' That means a backyard smoker, kettle grill, offset barbecue pit, or built-in patio broiler can be lit and used without applying to the fire chief, paying a fee, or meeting the 100-foot smoke-travel standard that governs permitted burns under § 11-7. The exemption is narrow by design, it reaches only devices used for cooking, not general trash or debris burning, which stays subject to §§ 11-5 through 11-7's prohibition-plus-permit structure. Because the exemption sits inside the same nuisance framework, a smoker or grill that becomes a genuine hazard or nuisance independent of its cooking use, dense smoke meeting or exceeding Ringelmann Chart density 2 as defined in § 11-10, for instance, or a fire that spreads beyond the cooking device, can still be addressed under § 11-5's public-nuisance declaration and the Chapter 1 general penalty, even though no permit was ever required to start it.

The exemption traces to the same 1953 Code ch. 18 § 37a enactment as the rest of the permit article and hasn't been narrowed by later amendment.