Whitfield County, GA Public Conduct: Outdoor Smoking Restrictions (2026)

5-21 folds Whitfield County's own facilities into the Georgia Smokefree Air Act of 2005 by prohibiting smoking, as that state act defines it, inside every enclosed building the county owns, leases or operates, from the courthouse to satellite offices. The ordinance does not stop there: it also lets three named officials, the Sheriff, the Fire Chief and the County Administrator, jointly designate exterior smoking areas for employees and visitors who want to step outside, but it fences that discretion with a hard distance rule, any designated smoking area must be located more than 30 feet from a regular entrance to the facility or building.

That 30-foot buffer is the county's actual outdoor-smoking rule: it keeps secondhand smoke away from doorways rather than banning outdoor smoking on county grounds altogether, so a person can smoke outside a county building only within an area the three officials have specifically set aside and only if that spot clears the 30-foot mark from any entrance people regularly use. 5-22, separately bans smoking inside any vehicle Whitfield County owns, leases or operates, closing off county trucks and cars as a workaround. Neither section reaches privately owned outdoor spaces such as restaurant patios or parks outside county-operated recreation buildings, so this rule is specific to county government property.