After months of waiting, the Belmont City Council will have another chance to discuss an idea to ban almost all smoking within its boundaries Tuesday night.

The City Council meeting promises to be packed full of hot debate. The council will hold a public comment period and then discuss the multitude of possible smoking restrictions its draft ordinance may include — from prohibiting smoking in apartments to the sidewalk.

The draft resolution reads like a menu from which the council may pick and chose. It can chose to enact a policy that declares smoking a public nuisance, allowing residents to sue over the existence of tobacco smoke in mutual living areas. Going a few steps further, it can ban smoking in common living areas such as apartment buildings. To set a national precedent, the council could chose to ban smoking in every area of the city, including sidewalks, according to a report issued Friday.

Last year, the Southern California city of Calabasas enacted a smoking ordinance that prohibits smoking everywhere except special smoking areas. At its Nov. 14 meeting, the Belmont City Council strongly suggested it wanted to take that ordinance a step further by banning smoking everywhere in the city except in single-family residences.

The idea of declaring smoking a public nuisance was raised by Mayor Coralin Feierbach in October after Ray Goodrich, 81, complained to the council about tobacco smoke at his Belmont retirement home. The council not only agreed to consider the public nuisance request, but Councilman Dave Warden took it a step further at its Nov. 14 meeting and called for a total ban.

A handful of residents were at the meeting, including Goodrich and a representative of the American Lung Association. Most were surprised by the council’s declaration of disgust for the bad habit.

Whether the council feels comfortable making national news Tuesday depends on public comment and discussion among its five members. It already issued a statement earlier this week seeking public comment leading up to the meeting. Mayor Coralin Feierbach said she will allow members of the public up to three minutes each for comment.

The divisive proposal has stirred debate across the country and attracted letters and e-mails from around the world. In October, the council said it wanted to pursue a law similar to ones passed in Dublin and the Southern California city of Calabasas. It took up the cause after a citizen at a senior living facility requested smoke be declared a public nuisance, allowing him to sue neighbors who smoke. Armed with growing evidence that secondhand smoke causes negative health effects, the council changed their tune and decided to pursue the strictest law possible when the issue came up again in November. The stricter law would actually make it possible for police to issue citations to violators.

Police, however, would not actively enforce the stricter law. If a resident called police on a smoker, an officer would respond and likely issue a warning, according to previous testimony.

Each year in California, secondhand smoke is linked to 400 lung cancer deaths in nonsmokers, 3,600 deadly heart attacks and 31,000 asthma attacks in children, according to a report issued last year by the California Resources Board, which also declared secondhand smoke a toxic air contaminant.

The meeting will be held 7 p.m., Tuesday, March 13 at City Hall, 1 Twin Pine Lane, Belmont. The meeting will also be available live on the city’s Web site, www.belmont.gov.

Dana Yates can be reached by e-mail: dana@smdailyjournal.com or by phone: (650) 344-5200 ext. 106. What do you think of this story? Send a letter to the editor: letters@smdailyjournal.com.