Boston, MA Public Conduct: Outdoor Smoking Restrictions (2026)

14 of the Boston Code of Ordinances flatly prohibits smoking inside any public park or any other public place under the jurisdiction of the Parks and Recreation Commission, Boston Common, the Public Garden, Franklin Park, neighborhood playgrounds and every green space the Commission controls fall inside the ban. The ordinance defines SMOKING broadly: "inhaling, exhaling, burning or carrying any lighted cigar, cigarette, pipe or other lighted or vaporized substance in any manner or form," language written to reach e-cigarettes and vape pens as squarely as traditional tobacco, and the Section goes further than most municipal smoking bans by naming marijuana specifically, "including marijuana used for medical or any other purpose", so a medical-marijuana card offers no exemption inside a city park.

The Parks and Recreation Commission has standing authority to promulgate additional rules and regulations to implement and enforce the ban, meaning posted signage and site-specific restrictions at individual parks trace back to this Section. L. Chapter 40, Section 21D, the same civil-ticket mechanism used for many municipal ordinance violations, or by filing a criminal complaint at the appropriate court venue. The Section was added by Ordinance 2013 c. 15, which separately bars smokeless tobacco and other tobacco products at professional, collegiate, high school and organized amateur sporting event sites citywide, a related but textually distinct prohibition covering ballfields and stadiums rather than parks generally.