Somerville, MA Public Conduct: Outdoor Smoking Restrictions (2026)

Section 6-3 of Chapter 6 (Health) sets a 50-foot buffer for three separate situations on city-controlled property. First, smoking is unlawful within 50 feet of anyone attending a scheduled athletic event, artistic event, special event, performance, festival, musical event, or concert in a public park under city control. Second, smoking is unlawful within 50 feet of any monument or memorial on public property, a category the section defines broadly to include memorial stones or buildings honoring a person or event, expressly reaching monuments in publicly owned cemeteries.

Third, and broadest, smoking is unlawful in and within 50 feet of all school grounds, playgrounds, public parks, and tot-lots on property the city controls, with 'public park' defined to include outdoor fields or reservations the public is invited to use, including any park adjacent to a public school or city-operated building. The section's definitions matter for scope: 'smoking' means inhaling, exhaling, burning, or carrying any lighted tobacco product in any manner, and 'tobacco product' is defined to include cigarettes, cigars, chewing tobacco, pipe tobacco, snuff, and electronic cigarettes, electronic cigars, electronic pipes, or electronic hookah regardless of nicotine content, so vaping devices fall under the same ban as combustible tobacco.

The definition carves out only FDA-approved cessation or medical products marketed for that approved purpose. 'Scheduled' is defined narrowly as city-sponsored or reserved through city permitting or licensing, which ties the event-based 50-foot buffer to organized activities rather than casual park use generally.