[C-U Smokefree] Evanston takes up smoking ban plan

[kdrea at lungil.org]

This story was sent to you by: Kathy Drea

Evanston Illinois is now considering a clean indoor air ordinance.

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Evanston takes up smoking ban plan 
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Public hearing set on city proposal

By M. Daniel Gibbard, Tribune staff reporter. Freelance reporter Sean D. Hamill contributed to this report

March 1, 2004

The war on smoking will flare in Evanston on Monday as health activists square off against bar and restaurant owners over a proposal to make all of the city's indoor workplaces smoke-free.

The time is right to restrict smoking, said Don Zeigler, vice chairman of the city's Community Health Advisory Board. If the city adopts a ban, it would join Wilmette and Skokie, which passed similar measures last year.

Secondhand smoke "is unsafe at any level," Zeigler said.

But not everyone agrees a ban is the answer.

"We believe it will create an unfair advantage for Chicago," said Steve Cin, owner of Nevin's Pub, 1450 Sherman Ave. "We believe people who want to enjoy a cigarette at the bar or in the music area will go to alternative venues."

The two sides will air their differences before the City Council's Human Services Committee at 7 p.m. in the Evanston Civic Center, 2100 Ridge Ave.

Zeigler said he will ask the committee to forward a proposal to ban smoking to the full council. Citing the Wilmette and Skokie bans, he said: "The list is really growing fast because of what we've come to know in the last decade and a half of the significant dangers of secondhand smoke ... it's a matter of social justice that all employees should have a safe environment."

It is unclear how much support a measure would have in the City Council. Ald. Arthur Newman (1st), who is on the Human Services Committee, declined to say whether he supports a smoking ban.

"There are arguments on both sides, and I'm going to listen to them," Newman said. "Obviously, smoking is hazardous, and secondhand smoke is not good for people."

Bars and restaurants generate sales, liquor and real estate tax revenue for the village, he said, and he worries that a smoking ban could drive customers away from Evanston.

Ald. Lionel Jean-Baptiste (2nd), who also is on the committee, expressed a similar opinion.

"I agree with those who want to ban smoking," Jean-Baptiste said. "But I have to balance that with a responsibility to the business community."

Jonathan Perman, executive director of the Evanston Chamber of Commerce, said his group believes that "restaurateurs have the ability and should be given the right to choose for themselves how to run their restaurants and how to regulate smoking."

Perman said 70 of the city's 175 restaurants are smoke-free and the rest follow city laws requiring separate non-smoking areas and ventilation.

Although Skokie and Wilmette have approved smoking bans, Wheeling and Arlington Heights have rejected them, and Perman said Evanston's restaurant profile is closer to the latter towns'.

Patrons in some city restaurants at lunch Friday had strong feelings about a ban.

"I'm 100 percent in favor of it," said non-smoker Steve Cooper, 56, a Chicago textile executive who was having lunch with a business colleague at the Firehouse Grill, 750 Chicago Ave. "Even though I understand that people feel it's one of their rights to have the freedom to smoke, other people get sick from it."

Cooper said he and his colleague chose a table on the far side of the dining room, farthest from the bar and smoking area.

The man at the bar, Barry Stanek, 45, a construction worker from Tinley Park who was working in Evanston, said he understood the feelings of people like Cooper.

"Maybe in a restaurant I could understand a ban, but if there's a bar, there should be a smoking area," Stanek said.


Copyright (c) 2004, Chicago Tribune

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