Mount Vernon, NY Public Conduct: Outdoor Smoking Restrictions (2026)

Chapter 186 of the City Code, Parks and Playgrounds, was amended in 2009 to add § 186-18, which was expanded again in 2011 and 2023 to reach vaping devices and cannabis. The rule reaches every 'playground, park, street park, or tot lot area' as those terms are defined in § 186-1: any park, square or circle under Department of Public Works jurisdiction, and any recreational area under the Department of Recreation with installed play equipment. Subsection A bars lighting or carrying a lit tobacco product, cannabis product, hookah, or an e-cigarette that produces vapor within the 25-foot buffer; Subsection B separately bars discarding any of those same products or their packaging inside the same 25-foot zone, so tossing a spent cigarette or vape pod there is its own violation.

Subsection C protects anyone who tries to get another person to comply with the no-smoking rule from intimidation or reprisal. The 14 city-designated tot lots named in § 186-17, from Grove Street Playground to Purdy Playground, all trigger this buffer. Subsection E carves out one exception: the ban does not apply to a public sidewalk that happens to fall within 25 feet of a playground or tot-lot sandbox, so a smoker on the sidewalk skirting such a lot is not automatically in violation. Every violation is charged as an infraction and fined a flat $250, with no escalating schedule for repeat offenders written into the section itself.