The small community of Wolfville, N.S., has become the first municipality in Canada to ban smoking in any vehicle that's carrying a minor.

The town's seven councillors voted unanimously Monday night to support the bylaw. The new rule will come into effect June 1, 2008.

"Children are often in situations in automobiles where the concentration of smoke is very high and they have very little control over the environment in which they find themselves," Mayor Bob Stead told CTV Atlantic hours before the vote. "So they're often silent sufferers. For us, this becomes an issue of wellness."

Anyone caught smoking in a vehicle with someone under the age of 18 will be fined between $50 and $250 by local RCMP officers.

Stead said the officers will first focus on education, rather than penalizing offenders.

"First contact (by the RCMP) will be about informing people what is the law, and why this is an important health issue," he said on the even of Monday's vote.

In Nova Scotia, the legal age for smoking is 19. The bylaw would also apply to an 18-year-old resident who is driving and smoking by herself.

Although Stead said the town created the bylaw because of health concerns, he said the regulation would never be extended to protect minors in the home.

"I think the choice of how far you go with what people would refer to as 'intrusion' is a subjective one," he said. "I think going beyond the automobile to the home would be unacceptable."

He added that legally, "the bylaw applies to the town of Wolfville, so we're saying that when you bring your vehicle into our space there are certain regulations that apply."

According to the Canadian Cancer Society, 1,000 non-smokers die each year from second-hand smoke.

Not smoking in cars "should be common sense, but one in five Canadian children are exposed to second-hand smoke in vehicles, so obviously adults haven't gotten the message that this isn't the right thing to do," said spokesperson Meg McCallum.

Earlier this year, the Ontario Medical Association said Ontario should ban smoking in vehicles carrying children, and said most residents in the province would support the move.