Wicomico County, MD Public Conduct: Outdoor Smoking Restrictions (2026)

The parks chapter's regulations section covers smoking as one subsection among the rules that apply to every park in unincorporated Wicomico County. It sets a flat indoor ban: smoking or vaping is prohibited inside all county buildings and indoor facilities. It then extends the ban outward around those buildings, prohibiting smoking or vaping within 25 feet of building entries, outdoor air intakes and operable windows, a buffer aimed at keeping smoke from drifting into occupied spaces. Beyond that fixed buffer, the chapter gives the county discretion to designate other outdoor no-smoking areas, naming bleacher areas and concession stands as examples of spots where smoking or vaping should not occur, with the requirement that any such designated area be communicated to the public through on-site signage rather than left unmarked.

The subsection sits in the same paragraph that separately addresses cannabis, first requiring cannabis use to follow all local, state and federal law and then prohibiting cannabis use in public parks outright, so the smoking buffer and the cannabis ban are enforced together as one regulation. Like every other rule in the parks chapter, violations are civil infractions: the chapter's violations section sets a fine of not less than $25 nor more than $1,000 per offense, with a fine schedule set by County Council resolution and each day of a continuing violation treated as a separate offense, enforceable by the Sheriff's Office, state-designated special police on park property, or anyone the Council designates to issue citations.