Posted on 05/08/2006 1:26:21 PM PDT by SheLion
This comes after we showed you video on Thursday night of elderly and disabled residents, risking their lives, shuffling across a busy street. On the other side was the new designated smoking area.
Investigative Reporter Chris Halsne discovers our video has revved-up interest in scaling back the state's tough smoking ban.
Our new law clearly says you can smoke inside your residence, but there is not an exemption for people residing at assisted living centers.
As our cameras found out, that means smokers, already in poor health, may have to brave dangerous conditions to light up. Some legislators say that has to change.
It's tough to out-race a car going 40 miles per hour when you're confined to a walker.
If you're a smoker who wants to follow the new rules at the Bremerton Health and Rehabilitation Center, your choices are limited. Smokers were kicked off the property a few weeks back, pushed across the street to an uncovered cement bench.
State Representative Toby Nixon watched our investigation with dismay.
“I'm shocked, but not surprised. It's an ongoing problem we have with initiatives, frankly,” Nixon said.
Rep. Nixon says disabled nursing home residents shouldn't have to "make a break for it" or stand in the freezing rain to smoke at what's essentially their home.
“It's a politically sensitive issue. Legislators are reluctant to go against what they see as the 'will of the voters,' even if it's a case where the voters may not have understood all of the ramifications of what they were passing,” Nixon said.
Next fall, Nixon says he will re-introduce a bill to make sure nursing homes make reasonable accommodations for smoking residents.
The lawmaker wasn't the only one watching our investigation. Elaine Odom is in charge of inspecting safety conditions at all Washington nursing homes.
“It bothers me to see people going across a street that busy, especially with walkers and wheelchairs,” Odom said.
When we told her of unsupervised, mobility-impaired clients, traveling over uneven terrain, Odom personally visited the Bremerton Center. She cited it with a safety violation after observing the same thing we had videotaped. To fix the problem, the Center is now building a covered smoking area on a flat surface near the building.
“I believe it’s safe now. We did cite them and we will get a plan of correction from them,” Odom said.
Donald Pike says he understands why taxpayers want to see him quit smoking, but he also hopes lawmakers see his point of view.
“This is my home, ya' know. Why do we have to go across the road to smoke? This is my home!”
Lawmakers also tell KIRO Team 7 Investigators they would like to soften the smoking ban in two other situations: smoking indoor for religious purposes and allowing cigar stores to let buyers light up there to sample products.
Where's my tax revenue ping?
Ridiculous! What are they going to be required to do, have smoking and non-smoking wings? What about non-smoker patients? The staff's exposure? Find somewhere on their grounds for these people to puff away?
These folks aren't living at home if they need nursing care and should not be accomidated as if they are. They can find another facility that doesn't have a busy street to cross or Big Tobacco (or smoking advocates) can fund a solution.
I say the nonsmokers should have to put up with it. I know that I'm personally finished trying to appease you psychos. I also hope that you enjoy the secondhand smoke.
What will come next? School students forced to stand outside in the rain, or cross the street to leave school property, so that they can smoke? We need to change the laws, for the sake of children.
After all, they know better than you do, what's good for you.
This should make a lot of churchs happy.
Father:"So, my son, why are you coming to church after all this time?"
New convert, lighting up in his pew:"Gosh, Father, I needed to find somewhere inside where I could smoke..."
Screw em all! If they'd never put these anti-freedom laws onto the books in the first place, they wouldn't have these (incredibly) stupid consequences to deal with now, now would they?
It's even more frustrating knowing that everything these laws are based on is total hogwash (to wit: elderly people smoking!) If it was so deadly, why are they still alive? Meanwhile you have people dying of lung cancer who have never smoked a cigarette in their lives.
The whole anti-smoking thing is just one of the latest straws the busybodies among us have taken up in their quest to rule everyone's lives but their own. As I said, "Screw em all!" I'm moving to Montana!
I have never had a problem being curteous, and I have not smoked among a group of people without their consent, but the empowered blowhards I have dealt with lately have made me reconsider. I'm talking about rude bastards ready to punch me because I was OUTSIDE smoking by myself with a stiff breeze. To hell with that. The next one gets smoke in his face and his wages garnished for the rest of his life when he hits me. I'm finished dealing with nanny state authoritarian zealots.
The nutballs have spread everywhere, like a yeast infection.
What Texas? This is my puff ping for the articles about smoking, etc.
Do you want to be added to my ping list???
These folks aren't living at home if they need nursing care and should not be accomidated as if they are. They can find another facility that doesn't have a busy street to cross or Big Tobacco (or smoking advocates) can fund a solution.
You are beyond ridiculous and you have NO heart! How dare you want the worst for our elderly!
And if you think second hand smoke is the killer that the anti's made you think it is, then I must say you have been easily swayed!
And YES! The nursing home IS their home! They can no longer live at home and they need medical care.
The nursing home, to which they are paying thousands of dollars a month for is DEFINITELY they home!
Were you even born with a heart?????
I say the nonsmokers should have to put up with it. I know that I'm personally finished trying to appease you psychos. I also hope that you enjoy the secondhand smoke.
He is so cruel and was born with no heart. What compassion eh? Makes me want to throw up. People like him are filling our prisons every day!
Ahhhhh...........my daughter graduated in 1990 and during her high school years, they were able to smoke on the grounds. But a year before she graduated back then, the authorities put an end to it. They had to leave the grounds to smoke. Which was across the street at a store.
So, I don't know many High Schools today that allow students to still smoke on the grounds. That is pretty much gone.
Me too!!!!
As if. That didn't stop them from building a couple of stadiums and a bridge that nobody wanted... and voted down.
Enough already... me too!
There's got to be something we can do. I've really had it with this WA law.
Lately I've been getting into a little verbal confrontation with an @sshat building manager at my office. The smoking area that's been there for more than ten years is just outside the garage entrance. There's a sensible place outside the garage door... but 25 feet away is out in the rain. The building manager is grinning and adamantly pressing the issue, even though it makes no sense. He's a little 20-something twit on a power trip.
It's a *garage* entrance... you know... the kind where *cars* drive into...? Sure, it's OK for cars to be inside pumping exhaust, but we can't risk a little wisp of smoke going in there...?
It is completely absurd. I'm tempted to push it and make them call the police. Every day. It would be worth a few tickets, especially since it might be fun to pour some money into a good lawyer and fight it (as if I had time for that... but it would be fun).
Right! They promise us the moon to get our votes, then when in office, all they give us is the OUTHOUSE!!!
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