Portsmouth, VA Public Conduct: Outdoor Smoking Restrictions (2026)

Sec. 25-111, titled simply "Smoking," sits in Chapter 25's parks-and-recreation regulations and states that no person shall smoke in any structure or place in any park where smoking is prohibited, and that smoking may be forbidden by the parks director or an authorized agent in any part of any park when fire hazard conditions make that advisable. The rule is discretionary and location-specific: it does not itself outlaw smoking across every acre of every Portsmouth park, but empowers the director to post no-smoking areas or, during dry or high-risk conditions, close smoking anywhere in the park system.

It sits immediately after Sec. ," which separately requires any lighted match, cigarette, or cigar be fully extinguished before being discarded in a park and bars unattended fires outside designated areas, showing the two sections work together as a fire-safety regime for parkland. Article III violations of Chapter 25 default to a Class 1 misdemeanor under Sec. 25-88 unless a specific penalty is stated elsewhere in the article, and Sec. 25-111 does not carry its own penalty clause, so that general Article III default applies.

This differs from Portsmouth's separate indoor Regulation of Smoking article (Sec. ), which bans smoking in enclosed public buildings, health facilities, and restaurants but does not reach outdoor park space; Sec. 25-111 is the operative rule for outdoor park smoking specifically.