After nearly three hours of discussion, most of it by proponents and opponents during the community comment portion of the decision making process, City Council added the following words to the City's ordinance that prohibits smoking in certain places: "No person shall smoke in any part of any restaurant, bar, cafe, deli or other public place where food or beverage is sold, served or offered for sale, or in any outdoor dining area or patios serving said establishment."
More than three dozen people stepped to the microphone to voice their opinion, the majority of them asking Council to pass the ordinance. In the end, the Council voted to pass the amendment, calling for a ninety-day education/outreach period during which no penalties will be imposed. At the end of the ninety-day period, staff will come back to Council with their recommendations as to whether they need more time for the outreach program, or changes to the amendment (i.e., is a buffer zone needed around the dining areas, etc.).
Interesting to note that not one of the owners of the restaurants that will be most affected by the amendment spoke on the issue, and from my vantage point in the Council Chambers, there appeared to be only one restaurant owner in attendance. There was an overflow crowd spilling into the foyer of the Chambers, much of which I could not see, so there may have been others in attendance.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Remember this ordinance only strenghtens the existing smoking ordinance that the city has.
ReplyDeleteWhat..a 90 day "education period..What For? Let me guess..In order to enfeeble the Amendment further.."Buffer Zone",you have to be kidding..why bother!Keep it short and sweet..NO SMOKING WITHIN EATING AND DRINKING AREAS!
ReplyDeleteLooks like I'll just add Sierre Madre to the list of un-American (and anti-free choice) cities in S. California that I will never spend ANY money at, not even $1. Bigotry, hate, and mob rule have rear their ugly heads in America once again. Congratulations!
ReplyDeleteOh please...just because you can't "indulge" in your habit where food and drink are concerned we are "un-American"? Do me a favor....take your $1 and your attitude and LEAVE!
ReplyDeleteIf someone lights up 3 feet away from you on a restaurant patio or on the adjacent public sidewalk, it does not really make a difference, does it? Depending on prevailing wind conditions, either way there is a good chance you will be inhaling second-hand smoke. If this ordinance is truly going to protect the public from second-hand smoke in outdoor areas, it will have to restrict smoking to specific areas in the downtown area, or like 3rd Street in Santa Monica, make the entire area a "smoke-free" zone.
ReplyDeleteAs for bigotry, hate and mob rule, I'm not sure how regulating an addiction that directly impacts bystanders is "un-American". Most of the non-smokers i know do not personally hate smokers, they just hate being subjected to second-hand smoke in public places.
The city council has voted. The patio ban is a fact, but the issue will not die. The city council and you will be presented again and again with demands to ban smokers from parks, from the city sidewalks and streets, on business outdoor property, inside apartments and condos, finally in his own back yard and in the privacy of his living room. Paranoid? In 2006 I predicted to my city council that there would be bans on smoking in one's own home. Today in Calabasas and Belmont that ban is fact.
ReplyDeleteIn 2006 when my city council voted that an 80 year old veteran, who fought for his country in World War II and Korea, could not sit in a park in his city and smoke a pipe, I began to research the claims about second hand smoke the city council based their decision on and discovered that they simply are not true. Smoking is a (much exaggerated) hazard to the smoker. It does not endanger the non-smoker.
Don't blindly accept the American Lung Association and American Cancer Society crib sheets for city council presentations, go to the internet and do your own research. For a start:
Dr. Michael Siegel (www.tobaccoanalysis.com) is a pioneer anti-tobacco activist for indoor smoking bans who became dismayed at the anti-tobacco organizations' misrepresentations of science when they moved to outdoor bans. His comment column's literate scientific contributors are often more educating than his articles.
Dr. Elizabeth M. Whelan, president of the American Council on Science and Health (www.acsh.org) is very much anti-smoking and pro indoor bans, but objects in scholarly detail to the misrepresentation of science by the Center for Disease Control (CDC) and the 2006 U.S. Surgeon General's Report in "Surgeon General's Report Blows Smoke" and in "Mayor Bloomberg Exaggerates Secondhand Smoke Risk. She also has archived articles in Huffington Post (www.huffingtonpost.com).
Minnesota State Senator Tom Neuville (www.tomneuville.com/archives/119) is a rare legislator who researched before he voted. His website archives contain links to articles and scientific studies that are otherwise inaccessible
Chris Snowden (www.velvetgloveironfist.com) is an English historian. His website contains excerpts from his work in progress on a history of the anti-smoking movement and well researched articles on the misrepresentation of science in "The Helena Miracle" (presented to BilCo by a stroller mom), and on California anti-tobacco activists James Repace (associate of M. Klepsis also referred to BilCo) and Stanton Glantz.
Go to www.cleanairquality.blogspot.com, www.davehitt.com, Enstrom's Scientific Integrity Institute at www.scientificintegrityinstitute.org. Author Michael Crichton's speeches at www.michaelsrichton.net. This is just the easy stuff for literate laymen. I haven't even started listing the scientific studies.
Do your own research, read history, and THINK before you quail at a wisp of tobacco smoke.
Signature: That Sullivan Woman. (The terrified old lady, clutching her hat and her handbag, pursued over hill and dale by a torch and pitchfork wielding pack of stroller pushing stroller moms. With Sir Eric cracking a bullwhip at the laggards.)
Sullivan woman,
ReplyDeleteThe simple fact remains: there were over 50 folks present at the city council meeting, five supporters of a restriction to every one in opposition. We live here....it's what the people want! I don't by your stance that, "Smoking is a (much exaggerated) hazard to the smoker. It does not endanger the non-smoker." I'd like you to take that garbage to the families of folks who have died from lung cancer; who did not smoke but were exposed to high levels of second hand smoke. Your rhetoric is tired and old.
You know they make medications for folks with paranoid disorder...you should check into it.
Screaming babies don't cause cancer either. I'll be sure to let my little one scream it's head off near anyone, anytime because the annonymous typer above obviously doens't care about social courtesy or public health so I'm sure they won't mind.
ReplyDeleteIn "Hyping Health Risks" Dr. Geoffrey C. Kabat says:"Careful review of the literature on risk factors for lung cancer in never smokers has led several epidemiologists to conclude that we do not know what causes the majority of lung cancers occurring in those who have never smoked."
ReplyDeleteP. Boffetta and D. Trichopoulos, in "Textbook of Cancer Epidemiology" say of lung cancer in nonsmokers "Occupational factors, passive smoking, and indoor exposure due to radon do not explain more than a minor proportion of these cases".
Even the American Cancer Society, for whom secondhand smoke is a fund raising cash cow and uses the EPA's discredited figure of 3,000 never smoker lung cancer deaths per year, estimates that Radon causes 26% of lung cancer cases in never smokers and that 40% is unexplained. The ACS estimates 11,000 never smoker lung cancer deaths per year from all causes.
That hypothetical 3,000 people spread out over the whole country is pretty sparse. How many did you know?
J. Sidney Sullivan
Why don't you just admit your addicted to tobacco like the rest of them? I'm curious to know why you have not stated the obvious - that you ARE a smoker...of course you'll discredit everything presented to you.
ReplyDeleteFor the record, I know several folks whom have passed away due to lung cancer, buried my own Dad from tobacco use. If you haven't had a loved one or a friend succomb, consider yourself lucky . I stand by my facts and my statements. Smoke on, Ms Sullivan, they make extra large oxygen tanks for when you need them.
J Smith:
ReplyDeleteThe issue of the outdoor patio ban was the health impact of secondhand smoke on the nonsmoker. I intruded my personal information in response to questions.
I smoke because I enjoy it. If I just wanted a nicotine hit, I'd chew a piece of gum. As for the "rest of them"; Dr. Geoffrey Kabat, Dr. Michael Siegel, Dr. Elizabeth Whelan, Minnesota State Senator Tom Neuville, and Dr. James Enstrom have stated that they do not smoke. I do not have information on Drs. Boffetta and Trichopoulos, Chris Snowden, Michael Crichton, or Dave Hitt.
I am sorry your father died from tobacco use. Your statement implied that you referred to lung cancer deaths in never smokers: my reply pertained only to lung cancer deaths in never smokers. (The term "never smoker" is used to differentiate people who have never smoked at all from nonsmokers who smoked in the past and quit.)
According to the American Cancer Society, 10 percent of all smokers develop lung cancer (www.cancer.org). By their own statistic, 90 percent of all smokers do not develop lung cancer. In "Blowing Smoke About Tobacco Related Deaths", Robert A. Levy and Rosalind B. Marimont write: "Nearly 60 percent of (smoking related) deaths occur at age 70 or above; nearly 45 percent at age 75 or above; and almost 17 percent at the grand old age of 85 or above." (www.cato.org)
I could quote statistics and authorities at length on the topic of the exaggerated misrepresentations of smoker morbidity and mortality, but the outdoor patio ban issue is not the smokers' health: it is the nonsmokers' health.
This discussion has become a spat. I am not going to further abuse the hospitality of Mr. Coburn's comment column.
J. Sidney Sullivan