Smoke ban passes with 52 percent

[Longhorn]

Hotly contested issue drew more to polls than did council races
By Kate Alexander

AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF

Sunday, May 08, 2005

Public health advocates sighed a breath of relief Saturday night after voters approved a stringent smoking ordinance that bans smoking almost everywhere in Austin, including bars and live music venues.

The count remained close throughout the evening. But in the end, the ban squeaked out 52 percent of the vote in a contest that attracted almost 66,000 voters, 6,700 more than any of the City Council races. About 16 percent of city voters cast a ballot in the race.

(snip)

The city already bans smoking in public places, workplaces and most restaurants. The new ordinance, which goes into effect Sept. 1, extends the ban into more than 200 bars and clubs that have city-issued smoking permits.

(snip)

Supporters of the ban, led by a coalition of public health groups called Onward Austin, said bar workers and patrons should be protected from secondhand smoke. Detractors argued that the ban will harm Austin's live music industry because customers will come out less and not stay as long.

http://www.statesman.com/metrostate/content/metro/stories/05/8smoking.html

[sonias]

1. Smoking allowed in bingo halls and nursing home rooms?

Smoking would still be allowed in bingo halls, fraternal organizations and hotel and nursing home rooms, as well as on outdoor patios if farther than 15 feet from a door or openable window. The 10 restaurants that have installed filtration systems under the existing ordinance will have smoking until 2012.

Ok I understand the frat halls, they're basically homes, but bingo halls and nursing home rooms? The people that play bingo and live in nursing homes are the very people that should not be exposed to second hand smoke or be smoking for that matter. The bingo lobby and smoking lobby in nursing home must be very powerful. Weird.

Sonia

[Selteri]

2. I'd like to see Smoking put into seperate sections with barriers

but a unilateral ban is using broad strokes to fix a problem where those who are against it love to use false information and propoganda.

Mind you, I'm an ex-smoker. The worst anti-smokers all sem to be Ex-Smokers by my observation followed by those who prefer to lie. I dn't pretend that second hand smoking is good for you, it's not, yet there are ways to allow smokers safely.

In Vancouver, BC there are smoker booths in some shops and in others there are literally smoker sections that are completely closed off from the non-smoking sections with airlock style systems where the air is pulled from the non-smoking section by a vacuum as the air is filtered as it is shoved out into the public air. They use the same basic system in some airports as well and they are a more than equitable solution.

Smoking is a dirty, nasty habit, but punishing smokers for their addiction is just another level of freedom restriction that this government is employing gleefully. Their war on smoking will eventually lead to being the same as the rest of the 'war on drugs', a removal and destruction of our liberties and rights.

There are solutions that allow everyone to live together, these simply aren't proposed because those same solutions would mean finding a fair and balanced compromise, something that those radical sides would never be interested in.

[sonias]

3. The law does allow for the filtration Selteri

And 10 restaurants have those filtration systems installed. However they are very expensive, and that's why the bars were fighting the ban. For most small businesses it's out of their financial means to install them, so effectively they become smoke free period.

I have mixed feelings on the ban too. I'm a non-smoker but I do feel sorry for small business. My opinion is that the city should subsidize these air filtration systems since they give away ridiculous amounts of free money to huge corporations yearly. Why not send a little to the small businesses and help them save jobs we know are going to stay in Austin.

Sonia

[Selteri]

4. I agree, subsidizing and giving tax breaks for them would be the way to go

At least on this particular issue, small businesses being given essentially a tax break where they end up getting to install the barrier and filtration systems with pumps for almost no cost to them, allowing government approved loans for them installation.

The anti-smokers though are against this as well, at least, that is the impression I've seen here in Ohio where they have been stating that these systems make as much sense as 'peeing sections in a swimming pool'.

They don't care about who they hurt.

[noamnety]

7. How about instead of subsidizing smokers with our tax dollars

tobacco companies cough up the funds for the filtration systems?

Wouldn't that make more sense?

[sonias]

10. Well we know that's not going to happen lwfern

And I don't think of it as subsidizing smokers, but rather subsidizing clean air, so that non-smokers can visit these clubs too. Smoking is an addiction, but it's one the government has helped push on people as well. I think the tobacco settlement money should go to more prevention and education or even health programs, but Texas is using it for all kinds of unrelated things. But the absolute last thing they would do with it is help small businesses in Austin.

My point was helping save small business jobs. Small business in Austin never get any breaks that large multinational corporations do. Corporations like Freescale who just got 20 million dollars in corporate welfare from the city. I'm talking about a little equity with small business. They have a stronger vested interest in Austin. While Freescale would pick up and move in a hear-beat for a substantially higher offer. And frankly there isn't anything keeping them from doing that if they want to.

Sonia

[Longhorn]

6. I agree about the subsidization and tax breaks.

The municipalities give away millions of dollars in incentives for corporations to stay in their cities but very little to help the small businesses. As much money as the music scene brings to Austin every year, it seems like the city council could find a way to help with this transition.

That said, we own a small business and I'm certainly sympathetic to changes that affect them. But I also believe that changes will happen and that's just part of owning a business. My dad used to make a comparison to the transition from whale oil to kerosene -- the moral being that every business has to undergo changes to keep up with society or it goes under.

I certainly don't agree that government should over-regulate and make changes that aren't for the overall good of the public -- businesses can certainly be regulated out of business for no good reason. But banning smoking in all businesses puts everyone on a "level playing field" for the best possible reason -- health of the patrons and the workers.

[Longhorn]

5. The problem is that most Austin bars are also music venues.

So who gets to be in the room with the live music, the smokers or the non-smokers?

I have never smoked and I do not lie. I don't spout facts and figures about secondhand smoke because even if smoking were 100 percent safe, I still couldn't stand to be around it. It stinks and I don't like breathing it or smelling like it. I tutor students in a tutoring lab and sometimes just being in close proximity to a person who just came in from a smoke almost makes me gag. My throat feels raw after breathing in secondhand smoke.

So I avoid smokers whenever I can. This is harder than it may seem. I can even pull up at a stoplight behind a car with a smoker and end up breathing in his smoke!

Whose freedoms should be restricted -- those who at some point chose to take up this disgusting and unhealthy habit or the rest of us who didn't? And there are very few smokers alive today who didn't know when they started that it was unhealthy and addictive. I have sympathy for them but not to the point where I feel like I have to suffer because of their poor choice.

For the record, once this ban goes into effect, my husband and I, who live outside of Austin, will be making a point of going to bars in Austin. There have been many times that we wanted to go see a band but did not because of the smoking. We've spent hundreds of dollars on concerts in smoke-free concert halls so we'll transfer some of that spending over to the smaller newly smoke-free venues.

[CoolOnion]

9. Hooray!

Healthier for patrons, healthier for musicans, healthier for waiters and bar staff. I've always wondered how musicians perform with all that crap in the air.

[fudge stripe cookays]

11. Man, I sure...

could have used this ordinance when I was at The Cannibal Club every other night of the week in the early 90s.

It got so bad halfway through the evening that I'd have to stand outside in the fresh air for 20 minutes to let my eyes get some oxygen; they were so aggravated and bloodshot.

I AM a smoke Nazi, and I'm not afraid to admit it. Cigarettes killed my dad at 47 and most of his 8 brothers and sisters in one way or another.

I fucking hate cigarettes, and the sooner they become a thing of the past, the better.

FSC

[alarimer]

12. I have been having this same argument with a guy at work

who is an avid smoker. The city council here in Corpus passed an ordinance banning smoking in restaurants but not bars. The definition of what constitutes a bar or a restaurant depended on the square footage devoted to each so some restaurants enlarged their bars in order not to have to comply with the ban. One particular bar owner was so incensed with the ban that he got a petition started to put the ban to a vote in September. It is the only thing on the ballot so I am not hopeful that turnout will be high. In fact I think most of the voters will be people who are against the ban who want to make sure that the city will never be able to ban smoking in restaurants or bars. There is an anti-smoking group that has promised a massive ad campaign but i am not hopeful at all. Smoking disgusts me, especially around food. Gross!! Why the hell can't these people wait an hour or go outside to smoke? The city, in my opinion, has the right to regulate air quality in restaurants. They regulate other aspects of the restaurant business with regard to health and safety.

[cosmik debris]

8. I hate to sound like a "smoke Nazi"

but good for them!

Now that we have that minor issue out of the way perhaps we can address the much greater issue of second hand smoke form internal combustion engines and coal fired power plants. I know we have to take baby steps, but keeping smokers out of a couple of hundred bars is irrelevant compared to exhaust spewing from the traffic on I-35. I hope this success doesn't make the clean air crowd think the battle is over when it hasn't really started yet.