Spokane bus plaza smoking section gone for good, agency decides

Roughly three months after removing the smoking area at the downtown Spokane bus plaza, the Spokane Transit Authority is making the change permanent, believing it has helped to cut down on loitering and other problematic behavior.

Cigarette smoke was still in the air surrounding the plaza Friday afternoon, but it drifted over from one or two smokers across the street in any direction, as opposed to a group of smokers that had been a common sight along the plaza's Wall Street block face in the plaza's smoking area. Beyond the risks of secondhand smoke inhalation, STA officials in January pointed to heightened crime risks posed by the smoking section.

The Spokane Police Department conducted an analysis using a concept known as crime prevention through environmental design and determined the plaza's smoking section increases the likelihood of "security incidents" because the large metal slabs reduce visibility.

During the 90-day closure, "serious security incidents" have dropped significantly year over year, according to a staff report for the transit agency. Compliance didn't occur overnight once the smoking area was fenced off, but has improved quickly, the report adds.

It's not the first time the plaza has experimented with removing the smoking area. In 2012, the section was closed during road renovations. In the weeks that followed, surrounding business owners complained about a sharp increase in loitering nearby the plaza, claiming that the issues were caused by young people migrating from the plaza to their storefronts.

Business owners believed the problem was so severe that some began to install "mosquito" devices that emit a high-pitched noise generally only audible to people ages 30 and younger in order to dissuade people from loitering. At least one business owner dismissed the complaints of his store's younger customers as a necessary cost of mitigation.

In response, the Spokane City Council gave police the power to enforce $50 smoking violation tickets, and eventually STA reversed course and spent $70,000 to restore the smoking area.

Results were different this time, according to the STA staff report, calling reports of "problematic behaviour in surrounding areas" limited and infrequent, easily addressed by the agency, the Downtown Spokane Partnership and police.

"The removal of the designated smoking area eliminated a persistent congregation point that historically required frequent staff intervention and contributed to congestion," according to the report. "As a result, the Plaza environment became cleaner and more orderly, and Security personnel were able to shift time away from routine smoking-related enforcement toward proactive patrols and broader safety coverage throughout the Plaza."

The agency confirmed it will move ahead with plans to repurpose the space to improve access for those with disabilities.

"It's quite a distance away for people with limited mobility to have to walk and get around there," STA spokeswoman Carly Cortright said in January. "And we've got curb space where the smoking section is that is much easier for them to access and that is ideally where we would like them to be able to navigate."

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