[C-U Smokefree] FWD NEWS ARTICLE: Local smoking bans a tough sell

[kdrea at lungil.org]

This www.dailyherald.com news story was forwarded to you by

Kathy Drea
kdrea at lungil.org


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Local smoking bans a tough sell
Daily Herald Reports

Arlington Heights' rejection of a proposed public smoking ban, though
naturally a disappointment to its supporters, is hardly a surprise.

Granted, the effort by public health advocates to win community-by-community
prohibitions seemed to generate momentum in 2003 when first Skokie
and later Wilmette passed ordinances against smoking in restaurants.

But Monday's 6-2 vote by the Arlington Heights village board demonstrated
again that the possibility of doing economic harm to a community's
restaurateurs is an argument that resonates. Some Arlington Heights
trustees might be particularly sensitive on that point in their eagerness
to preserve the rekindled vibrancy of their downtown district. But
the business argument will resonate elsewhere, too, as long as this
issue is approached on a village-by-village instead of a statewide
basis.

Proponents of local smoking bans say political support for a statewide
ban simply does not exist and that they can build such backing only
by first winning approval for local ordinances.

But elected officials and restaurant owners in many suburbs share
an intuitive and understandable concern that a ban in their village
and their village only would prompt smoking customers to drive a mile
or two to a neighboring municipality when they dine out.

Those worries might be assuaged by a regional ban in which several
neighboring communities act simultaneously to prohibit smoking. But
a quirk in Illinois law discourages even that kind of cooperation.
Only the 20 municipalities that had a smoking ordinance of any kind
on the books in 1990, when the state passed a weak indoor clean air
act, can now approve ordinances tougher than state law. In the Northwest
suburbs, only Arlington Heights, Des Plaines, Elgin, Hoffman Estates
and Schaumburg are on that list. Even if those communities got together
and passed tough local ordinances, the result would still be a patchwork
of communities featuring more and less restrictive laws.

Our skepticism about local bans does not mean we are blind to the
case for smoking prohibitions on health grounds. There certainly is
a case - for diners who suffer asthma or for whom secondhand smoke
is a particularly powerful irritant. The strongest argument, though,
can be made on behalf of restaurant employees exposed to smoke for
several hours every day. Why should they be denied the health protection
so widely granted in most other fields?

It may well be true that there is insufficient political support
today for a statewide ban, yet that is where the effort should be
directed. With a state law in place, smokers would adjust to smoke-free
restaurants just as they once adjusted to smoke-free flights. And
while a statewide prohibition would still raise concerns for a few
businesses located near state lines, it would erase for most restaurant
owners the fear that a smoking ban would drive customers to an adjacent
suburb.



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