The Teton District Board of Health will meet Tuesday morning to discuss a clean-air regulation that would ban smoking in public places.

The board at first considered changing the county’s food code to label secondhand smoke a toxic substance, but members decided in December that an indoor air regulation was a better approach to prohibit smoking. An indoor air regulation is more easily enforced and reaches a broader range of public places than restaurants and bars, board members said.

A clean air regulation “basically prohibits secondhand smoke exposure from the general public in almost every situation,” Dr. Brent Blue said.

Blue said he used model ordinances from other towns to draft the preliminary language, which then was circulated among other board members for input.

County Attorney Keith Gingery said the clean-air regulation is similar to a proposal the Jackson Town Council considered in 2007.

Council members did not approve the smoking ban then because they said it was unnecessary. Only the Virginian Saloon allows customers to smoke in the county.

Advocates of the ban, such as Teton County Tobacco Prevention program manager Julia Heemstra, worry that establishments still could decide to allow smoking unless a regulation prohibits it. County commissioners lack power to approve such regulations.

At the health board’s December meeting, Richard Choate, of Tobacco Row, said patrons are given a choice whether to go into a place that allows smoking. A ban takes away a person’s right to choose, he said.

Lauri Clements, county environmental health supervisor, provided the board with background information on smoke-free regulations. She said banning secondhand smoke through the food code would apply only to facilities with permits and would need approval from the Governor’s Food Safety Council. If the health board were to adopt a clean-air regulation, approval from the Food Safety Council would not be necessary.

A recent Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study showed a drop in patients hospitalized for heart attacks in Pueblo, Colo., after officials there banned smoking in the workplace in 2003. Researchers said the rate for hospitalized cases dropped 41 percent in three years after the ban was adopted. Neighboring communities did not see similar declines, the report said.

The health board is scheduled to meet at 9 a.m. on Tuesday in the county health department’s meeting room.

If the board decides to pursue the clean-air regulation, a public notice must be placed and a 45-day comment period must follow.