Monroe County, FL Public Conduct: Outdoor Smoking Restrictions (2026)

Sec. 18-4, adopted by Ord. No. 018-2022, prohibits any person in or on a county-owned public park or public beach from smoking, burning, igniting, inhaling, exhaling or even possessing any lighted cigarette, pipe or other lighted tobacco product. The single carved-out exception is an unfiltered cigar, so cigar smokers may still light up under the ordinance's plain text while cigarette and pipe smokers may not. The ban applies countywide to every county-owned park and beach in the unincorporated Keys, from Harry Harris Park in Tavernier to Bernstein Park on Stock Island, and is not limited to playgrounds or enclosed structures.

00 for each subsequent violation. The ordinance does not create a permit or exemption process for special events, so an event organizer cannot smoke-legalize a park gathering the way alcohol prohibitions can be waived elsewhere in chapter 18. Because Sec. 18-4 sits in the parks and recreation chapter rather than chapter 17's general nuisance provisions, it is enforced primarily as a parks-use rule by facilities staff and code compliance rather than through the noise or nuisance citation process, and it applies only on county-owned park and beach property, not on private land or in the incorporated municipalities that govern themselves.