Posted on 06/03/2005 2:41:36 PM PDT by SheLion
Highland Park enacted Lake County’s first smoking ban Wednesday, a move local health officials say is something they hope all municipalities will soon consider.
It means all indoor public areas, including restaurants, taxis and places of work, in the city are off limits to smokers. The ordinance was approved by the city council in April.
“The second-hand smoke issue is becoming really big,” said Bill Mays, the county health department’s director of community health services. “Highland Park’s leadership in this regard is an important precedent.”
Health department officials say the action is the most sweeping they’ve seen. That’s due, in part, because Highland Park is one of 20 communities in Illinois that can legally enact smoking bans tougher than state standards.
All that is poised to change if Gov. Rod Blagojevich signs off on a plan that would allow individual municipalities to snuff smoking on their own turf. The plan, in the works for more than a decade, was recently approved by the state legislature and awaits approval from the governor.
However, Highland Park’s smoking ban is not without opposition.
Richard Holleb, owner of Norton’s Restaurant on Sheridan Road, said he had 350 customers sign a petition against the ordinance before it was passed. His restaurants turn into bars at night, where he used to permit smoking once the kitchen closed.
“My guess is that I will lose business,” Holleb said.
For local residents like Simon Pestell, who walked through downtown Highland Park Wednesday with a cigarette in hand, the ban foreshadows what’s to come over time in most cities.
“Personally, I think it’s stupid because restaurants have good ventilation systems now,” he said.
At Rosebud restaurant, general manager John Folinazzo said he knows non-smokers will be happy cigarette and cigar fumes won’t be coming from the bar area anymore.
“In the summer, people can come and sit on the patio to smoke, but the winter is a whole other story,” he said
Highland Park officials were not available for comment.
Mays said he hopes other communities follow Highland Park’s example if the governor enables them to do so.
“It’s an important public health principle,” he said.
I was born in Women's Hospital in Detroit...my grandfather was on the Hamtramck fire department as Capt. Frank Tomaszewski. He died "in service" from a heart attack from smoke inhalation. Hamtramck was a Polish "ghetto" in those days.
If you live "just over" from Highland Park, what are you doing to protect smokers rights?
They feel safe in their own little secure worlds knowing that they have a safe income, they can pay their taxes and buy pretty much whatever they wish. They have been been raised in in a society free from strife due to the sacrifices of our parents and have fallen hook line and sinker for the lies of the left. Thus their readiness to side with any cause that may be in line with whatever vice they find offensive without once thinking about the long range effects their cause may have on the constitutional rights of all Americans.
Remember, the neighborhood bars that are going to be the worst affected and driven out of business by these damn laws are the same bars that the likes of Smith, Paulat and the rest of the so called conservatives would never, ever in their lifetime think of entering.............
Did you see #141? That's just the START of my life....
I have ALWAYS supported smoking establishments.
NOWHERE ON FREEREPUBLIC, ANYWHERE have I ever said anything else...I dare you to find it....
...just shows how little some folks know about me...but it doesn't stop them from a nasty smear campaign...they are not nice people....
This is the one and only time I am going to respond to you jackass! You know nothing about Hamtramck, you know nothing about their heritage, you know nothing about their ass-busting work ethic, you know nothing about the pride and culture they put into their community, you know nothing about the sweat they put into the factories after migrating to this country! You know nothing about their devotion to their catholic religion and above all, you know nothing about how they would give everything they own to help out their neighbor!!!
For what its worth jackass, Hamtramck was a community of Polish immigrants and their descendents and was no different from any other community in Detroit/Wayne County which includes the Italians, the Irish, the blacks and the hispanics! From Hamtramck came judges, lawyers, doctors, engineers, city planners, NBA basketball players, football players, baseball players and even tennis players.
For you to sit back in your ivory castle and call Hamtramck a ghetto is a slap in the face of every single individual who ever lived there or lives there still!!!
You, Paulat, exemplify the arrogance, the stupidity, and the elitist attitudes that permeate this society and even the Republican party and personally you make me sick!
Stay in your own neck of the woods Paulat, hometown Americana wants nothing to do with you or your ilk..........
You got an awful lotta hate about something!!!
Name the church between Lumpkin and Campau......
That would be Holy Cross.
My grandparents house was on Nagle St. It was torn down when they put in the highway.
We were in a world of hurt, because there was virtually no compensation for the taking of the house.
I should have explained...we lived with my grandmother...my grandfather died when he was 45...so we lived in her house.
Also...my dad maintained a subscription to Dziennik Polski and The Citizen until the day he died.
I haven't heard back from you guys!
Like most freedom grabbers, they have a ton of money and organization, and are as persistant as cockroaches, and are about as useful.
The smoke bans in most places is just that....smoke. Albeit I do not smoke the same loophole that prevails in "dry counties" will win here also possibly. Be prepared to see "club cards" for every resturant and bar in town the designates them as a "private club". You must pay for a one dollar lifetime membership (available at the door :o) to dine and "smoke" at said club.
That's how I think they'll beat this. It'll wind up costing the non smoker who voted this in a dollar more if they want to dine at that establishment.....
Stay safe !
What a wonderful idea! I agree with Rush that a "private club" is a private club!!!
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-backroom/1416038/posts?q=1&&page=140
Your boy has a thing goin' on!! You might want to see the next posts....
Somehow, I remember it as being "Nagle Ave."
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