News and Events
DeSoto County TFP Members & SWAT Youth Conduct a Tobacco Litter Clean-up at the New Mosaic Arena in Honor of Kick Butts Day
March 22, 2018
The Arcadia All-Florida Championship Rodeo, recently celebrating it's 90th year, is the largest and longest running rodeo in the southeast. This four-day rodeo has events such as bull riding, bareback bronc riding, saddle bronc riding, and team roping. It brings nearly 20,000 spectators from all over the state of Florida and the finest Pro Rodeo athletes from across the U.S.
This year’s rodeo was the first event to be held in the brand new Smoke-Free Mosaic Arena. As soon as construction was complete, with the help of the Tobacco Free Partnership of DeSoto County, the Arcadia All-Florida Championship Rodeo Association adopted a Smoke-free policy inside the arena! The policy includes all lighted tobacco products, including electronic nicotine delivery systems. In order to make visitors aware of the policy, our DeSoto TFP was able to provide signage, free of cost to the Rodeo Association.
In honor of Kick Butts Day, and to show our appreciation to the Arcadia All-Florida Championship Rodeo Association for adopting this policy, our TFP Members and SWAT Youth conducted a tobacco litter clean up on March 21st. We found very little tobacco litter inside the arena, however, a decent amount of tobacco litter was found outside the arena in the vendor set up space where there is not signage in place.
As one can easily see, adopting a tobacco policy and getting signage in place makes a huge difference!
If you are interested in implementing a tobacco policy of any sort, or want more information on becoming involved in local initiatives to reduce tobacco use in our community, please contact Jodie DeLoach, Tobacco Prevention Specialist at jdeloach@quitdoc.com
