Opponents form group against smoking ban in Kirkwood
Kirkwood now has two groups campaigning on the smoking issue.
Healthy Air for Kirkwood today turned in petitions with 1,258 signatures to force the start of an initiative process that would lead to a ban smoking in indoor public places. The St. Louis County Election Board will determine whether the petitions contain the required 1,036 valid signatures.
If so, the city council has 60 days from the certification of petitions to consider the initiative. If the council takes no action or rejects the proposal, voters would consider it between 30 days and 120 days after the last council action or the 60 day deadline.
Two Kirkwood residents, Steven Sheridan, a product development engineer, and Joe Toenges, a civic activist, are organizing Choose Kirkwood to oppose the initiative.
Choose Kirkwood wants to present a competing initiative, Sheridan said today. His group’s proposal would require:
> Kirkwood to comply with county, state or federal smoking regulations.
> Businesses that allow smoking to post a sign to that effect at their entrances, Sheridan said.
Getting the group’s initiative to succeed, he said, “will be very very difficult.” The group would like it to be on the same ballot as the anti-smoking one, but Choose Kirkwood, which has not drafted its proposal, is considerably behind its opponent.
Supporters of the smoking ban have said smoking is a public health issue. “It is well documented that second-hand smoke contributes to cancer, lung disease and heart disease,” Debra Cotten, a spokeswoman for the group, has said. It is a risk to workers in businesses that allow smoking, she has said.
Sheridan said his group wants to preserve choice for customers of Kirkwood restaurants and bars. Signs would let people know if establishments allow smoking; would-be customers would decide whether to patronize the places, he said.
Many Kirkwood restaurants do not allow smoking and most others “have done a good job of keeping smoke out of non-smoking areas,” Sheridan said. Bars would be the most affected by a smoking ban, he said.
Sheridan listed what he considers two problems with the wording of the anti-smoking initiative. One of them would make that initiative invalid, he said. They are:
> That it would require owners of all types of non-residential properties to post no smoking signs in every room rather than having one sign at the entrance cover an entire establishment.
> That the posting of signs in every room in city government buildings would cost the city money and violate a city charter provision that says an initiative cannot appropriate money without providing funds to cover the appropriation.
Sheridan on Thursday sent his objections to city officials.
City Attorney John Hessel said his role ends in helping officials determine whether a petition is in proper form. A judge would have to decide whether the initiative wording is vague or unworkable, Hessel said.
Find out more about Choose Kirkwood at http://www.choosekirkwood.org
These smoking bans will probably go down in history as one of the greatest marketing scams ever. They want to “hurry up and pass the bans” before people find out who is paying the lobbyists pushing for them.
Here’s the beginning of the ban movement in the USA.
http://www.rwjf.org/pr/product.jsp?ia=143&id=14912
Here are the instructions from Johnson and Johnsons’ (makers of cessation products) RWJ Foundation for their tax exempt political action committees. They are getting enough money from the RWJ Foundation, plus using MY tax money. They aren’t getting any more money from me.
http://www.no-smoke.org/pdf/CIA_Fundamentals.pdf
Well, they foisted a state-wide ban on us up here in Iowa. And now we got restaurants and bars going out of business. The flood of “non-smokers” who were supposed to storm in and pick up the slack petered out in a few weeks and wasn’t really that much of a flood, anyway, truth be told.
Folks, I don’t think the people pushing this agenda really give a whit about civil rights; they just don’t like smoking and they don’t really like smokers. They will claim it’s about health but the so-called science supporting the “second-hand smoke” claims is specious at best. Kind of like the so-called science that purports to support Global Warming — another 21st century techno-myth based on debatable science which they are zealously willing to turn our whole economy inside out over.
Consider, for a moment, that until recent times the first government in the century just passed that banned public smoking was Adolf Hitler and his Third Reich. I think this is getting way out of hand and it’s just time to stand up and just say “No.” This smoking thing is NOT really about health so much as it’s about politics and power.
We are only as free as we are willing to accept the things other people do that annoy us:
http://i319.photobucket.com/albums/mm457/batreport/so_which_side_are_you_on.jpg
^o^-bat
What if the governments mandated that all currently smoke-free hospitality venues MUST provide a smoking section to accommodate smokers, against the wishes of business owners who choose
to go smoke-free of their own free will?
That wouldn’t be fair, would it?
Neither are government mandated smoking bans.
Sheridan is wrong on both points because the new ordinance only requires a business to post a sign “near all entrances” - so that could be al little as 2 (front and back) and there is no size requirement and can even be just the logo used for no smoking. Also no new signage is required for places like governmental buildings because all of them are already smoke free.
True choice is when anyone is able to go to anyplace and not have to be worried about if it has harmful tobacco smoke.
Bob, you need to check your info better, just because the founder of the foundation was one of the Johnson’s, it doesn’t mean they’re J&J’s lapdogs. And if they are? Well the have a good track record of making America healthier: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Wood_Johnson_Foundation
Although I am all for passing a ban against smoking, I do agree with the Choose Kirkwood’s argument of the wasteful excess of putting no smoking signs in every room of the business. That is so much overkill. Really, don’t people ever take an economic perspective when the draw up these bills?
Reese Forbes. Your “Clean Air Act” states Sec. 100-030 (a) Smoking shall be prohibited in all enclosed places of employement within the City.
Your Ordinance defines an enclosed place as “a space bound on all sides by walls…including, but not limted to, lobbies, offices, ROOMS…”
Sec. 100-040. (b) “…a place listed in 100-030 shall clearly and conspicuo8usly post a “No Smoking” sign…near all enteraces where smomking is porhibited by this Ordinance.”
The ordinancer as writen clearly states that all enclosed places (rooms the ordinance states do qualify)must have a sign at its entrances. This applies to every empoloyer, public or private, including every business in Kirkwood. ALL ARE REQUIRED AS THE ORDINANCE STATES TO POST SIGNS AT EVERY ENTRANCE. Schoools, City Hall, Dr. Offices will be required to have signs littering thier hallways.
Reese Forbes should just tell us the truth and tell us she is a Marxist. There’s no such thing as true choice when government tells private business that they are passing laws that will reduce or close their business. No smoking folks are just business killers.
I’m waiting for a blind person to get arrested for smoking, making it necessary for those talking signs to be required in front of all the businesses. It’s just a matter of time.
I agree with you JOE TOENJES, this whole smoking ban thing is a scam. It has never been a problem for the past hundred and something years until NOW. If people don’t like the smoke GO somewhere else, its that simple. It should be up to the business owner if they want there establishment Smoking or non. You people are putting more and more people out of jobs because of this. For ALL you bar owners, if you want to beat the ban, check this site for more info!!!
http://www.Crown7.com