Paramount, CA Public Conduct: Outdoor Smoking Restrictions (2026)

Paramount Municipal Code § 9.32.220(N) sits in Chapter 9.32, the City of Paramount Parks and Recreation Regulations adopted by the Paramount City Council. It lists smoking and the use of tobacco or cannabis products among the activities that are unlawful in every park or recreational facility. The ban is not limited to the lawn or the playground. By its own words it encompasses the entire campus of a park, outdoor and indoor areas, gazebos, parking lots, walkways, and easements, so lighting up in a park parking lot is covered the same as lighting up beside the swings.

Section 9.32.020 defines smoking as carrying or holding a lighted pipe, cigar or cigarette of any kind, or any other lighted smoking equipment, or lighting, emitting or inhaling the smoke of one. The same definition counts an electronic smoking device or vapor pen that emits a vapor or aerosol as smoking.

The same section defines what a park or recreational facility is. It names Paramount Park, Progress Park, All-American Park, Spane Park, Dills Park, Salud Park, Garfield Park, Village Park, Meadows Park, Carosmith Park, Pequeno Park and the City Orange Splash Pad, and it adds any other qualifying property, including the Civic Center. City-owned property leased to a third party is excluded unless the lease expressly provides for park use.

The exception is narrow. Tobacco products can be smoked only in outside areas designated by the Director for and during certain special events. Cannabis gets no exception at all. The Director is the Community Services and Recreation Director or a person authorized to act in that role.

Enforcement runs through the Director and any authorized City employee, a term that covers any Los Angeles County Deputy Sheriff, any City Code Enforcement Officer or Community Service Officer, and designated Community Services and Recreation Department staff. Under § 9.32.050, a person who violates the chapter becomes a trespasser ab initio, and a Deputy Sheriff is authorized to eject that person from the park.