Sullivan County, NY Public Conduct: Outdoor Smoking Restrictions (2026)

Article I of Chapter 169, adopted in 2011, makes it 'the policy of the County of Sullivan that there shall be no smoking of any kind' on any property the county owns or administers, a rule that reaches every county facility, vacant county-owned parcel, and county-run outdoor space such as Lake Superior State Park (§169-1). The law carves out only two exceptions: residents of the Sullivan County Adult Care Center may smoke in an area the facility's administration designates for that purpose, an exception that does not extend to staff or visitors, and anyone may smoke inside their own vehicle whether it is parked or being driven on county property, though smoking inside a county-owned vehicle is never permitted, for any occupant, at any time (§169-1A).

Article II, added the following year, layers a second, narrower rule on top of the property-wide ban: it designates every park and playground the county owns or administers a 'Tobacco-Free Zone' and forbids tobacco of any kind there, closing a gap for any outdoor recreation site that might not have counted as a general 'county facility' under Article I (§169-2). Neither article prints its own fine schedule; the smoking ban is a codified county property-use policy rather than a criminal statute, in contrast with the Tobacco-21 retail sale law that the Legislature added to the same chapter in 2017 (Article III, §§169-3 through 169-10), which does carry civil penalties of $300 to $1,500 per violation for retailers who sell tobacco or vapor products to anyone under 21 within 1,000 feet of a school.