National City, CA Public Conduct: Outdoor Smoking Restrictions (2026)

Chapter 9.37 of the National City Municipal Code, Prohibition of Smoking in Open Air Dining Areas, was adopted by Ordinance 2009-2318, and its definitions were amended by Ordinance 2018-2452. Section 9.37.020 has two parts: smoking is prohibited in all open air dining areas located on private or public property, including the public right-of-way, and smoking is prohibited within twenty feet of an open air dining area, except while actively passing on the way to another destination.

Section 9.37.010 sets the scope. An open air dining area is any non-enclosed area on private or public property made available to or customarily used by the general public that is designed, established or regularly used for consuming food or beverages, or where they are served whether or not for compensation, and it includes restaurants, hotels, bar standing and seating areas, patios and coffee shops. Enclosed means any covered or partially covered space having more than fifty percent of its perimeter area walled in or otherwise closed to the outside, such as a covered porch with more than two walls. Smoking covers cigars, cigarettes, pipes and any other lighted or heated tobacco or plant product intended for inhalation, and it includes an electronic smoking device that creates an aerosol or vapor, so vaping on a patio is banned the same way.

Chapter 9.37 addresses dining areas; it does not, by its terms, address city parks. Other Title 9 chapters add separate rules: Section 9.38.030(C) prohibits smoking outdoors within twenty-five feet of a retail establishment licensed as a tobacco retailer, and Chapter 9.36 designates the county of San Diego department of health services to enforce Section 6404.5 of the California Labor Code in enclosed places of employment.