Monterey Park, CA Public Conduct: Public Marijuana Use (2026)

Monterey Park's Chapter 6.20 does not treat cannabis as separate from tobacco: Section 6.20.020 defines 'smoke or smoking' to include carrying or lighting a pipe, cigar or cigarette, operating an electronic cigarette, and explicitly using cannabis or a cannabis product in any pipe, cigar, cigarette or electronic cigarette. Section 6.20.030(a) then bans that conduct at any time in public buildings the city owns or operates, public parks, common areas such as publicly accessible restrooms, elevators, courtyards or parking structures, and outdoor dining areas, wherever the required signs are posted. Subsection (b) extends the ban outward with buffer zones: no smoking, cannabis included, within twenty feet of those same public buildings, parks, common areas or outdoor dining areas, and within twenty-five feet of a playground or tot-lot sandbox under state Health and Safety Code Section 104495.

A responsible person may carve out a designated smoking area under Section 6.20.035, but only within a common area, beyond the twenty-foot buffer, posted with all-capital 'SMOKING AREA' signage at least one inch tall, carrying a Proposition 65 warning, and approved by the community development director as a conditional use under Chapter 21.66; failing to comply with those conditions is itself an infraction. Section 4.10.030(a)(2) designates a violation of Section 6.20.030 specifically as an infraction rather than a misdemeanor, and Section 4.10.040 fixes the fine at up to one hundred dollars for a first offense, two hundred dollars for a second violation of the same section within a year, and five hundred dollars for each further violation within that year.