Very good news, indeed!!!
Posted on 08/28/2002 3:22:51 PM PDT by Jean S
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) - Anti-smoking groups said they'll keep pushing for smoking bans around the state despite an Ohio Supreme Court ruling Wednesday that prohibited health boards from enacting such bans.
In a 6-1 ruling, Ohio's highest court called the goals of anti-smoking activists well intentioned but said state law does not allow them to overrule the Legislature, which exempted bars and restaurants from smoking bans.
"We grant that local boards of health are better situated than the General Assembly to protect the public health," Justice Andy Douglas wrote for the majority. "However, local boards cannot act in any area of public health without prior legislative approval."
Tracy Sabetta, project director for Tobacco-Free Ohio, said anti-tobacco groups will push for bans through ballot initiatives and legislation instead.
Almost 500 communities nationwide now have total smoking bans or comprehensive public bans with exceptions for bars and restaurants, and the national trends show that more bans are likely on the way, said John Banzhaf III, executive director of Washington, D.C.-based Action on Smoking and Health.
"As the evidence continues to emerge that secondhand tobacco smoke kills nonsmokers, people are worried about their health," he said. "They're worried about dying from everything from cancer to heart attacks."
Two states, California and Delaware, ban smoking in all public places. Utah bans smoking in all public places except membership-only restaurants and bars. Minnesota bans smoking in all public buildings and most medical buildings, except in specifically designated smoking areas and in bars. And bans in Maryland and Maine allow smoking only in restaurants with liquor licenses.
Florida voters in November will decide whether to outlaw smoking in restaurants, except for outdoor seating areas, and in all enclosed workplaces, including employee break rooms.
In a victory for Massachusetts' health department, the state's Supreme Judicial Court ruled last year that a local health board had the power to ban smoking in restaurants and bars.
The Ohio court's decision Wednesday went against backers of a total ban in Lucas County, approved in June 2001 by the Toledo-Lucas County Board of Health. The ban prohibited smoking in all indoor public places, including bars and restaurants.
Arnie's Eating and Drinking Saloon, a sports bar near the University of Toledo, and 26 other businesses took their challenge of the ban to the high court.
"We've thought all along an unelected board shouldn't be able to enforce such stringent rules," bar owner Arnie Elzey said Wednesday.
County Health Commissioner David Grossman said his department likely will begin working with anti-tobacco groups to put a smoking ban on the ballot in Toledo, which had the nation's highest smoking rate according to a federal report released in December.
A vote would be easier than asking local governments to approve such a ban, he said.
"I don't think any city councils will want to touch it," he said.
---
On the Net:
www.ash.org
http://www.ohiorestaurant.org/
AP-ES-08-28-02 1804EDT
Banzhaf refuses to acknowledge that the second hand smoke theory by the EPA in 1993 was thrown OUT of a Federal Court after the Court studied it for 5 years.
In 1998 the link made by the EPA Report in 1993 between secondary smoke and cancer was thrown out in a federal court because the statistics were bent to support a predetermined conclusion and normal scientific guidelines were ignored.
Federal Court Rules Against EPA on Secondhand Smoke I think any anti who tries to dismiss the findings of the U.S. Department of Energy labs at Oak Ridge, should be confronted with the question: "Are you saying that DOE researchers committed scientific fraud and that their findings on ETS exposure are untrue?" I'd like to see what any anti AND Banzhaf would say in response to that question.
It would greatly benefit America's children, and make a world a more pleasant place to live in.
We are NOT defending the Tobacco Industry. They sold us out! We are defending Freedom of Choice that has always prevailed in America, and we are defending the business owners RIGHT to do with his own business what he wants to do, without Big Government Intervention and the Special Interest Groups that are paid big money to control everyone.
We defend our right to engage in something that is legal. Thanks to the do-gooders and busybodies that seem to abound in our everincreasing PC society...we are taxed beyond belief to fund our increased medical costs and to pay for anti-smoking advertising aimed at young people.
When gays are singled out for unjust taxation...then maybe the argument about their impact on health care costs will get a sympathetic ear from those of us currently paying for whatever the state decides (it) needs the tobacco tax surplus to fund!
We do live our lives in our best interest. It's not up to anyone else how to tell others how to live their lives.
Tobacco is has been a legal product for hundreds of years. If it's so bad for us, why didn't they ban it years ago?
Alcohol isn't good for you either, but I don't see anyone taxing it to high heaven, and trying to blow it out of restaurants and bars. Wonder why that is.
Well, you KNOW how bad liquor can be for a person. Liver damage, etc. Yet, they aren't screaming to blow liquor out of bars and restaurants. And if a smoker leaves a restaurant and drives, he is no threat to anyone. We all know what drinking and driving can do.
I wonder who this "he" is.
And what evidence can he possibly be talking about?
And how can he make this claim when the Federal Courts have found this statement to be fraudulent, and the UN WHO Organization similarly found no foundation for even "harm" let alone death from second-hand smoke?
Riverman, what can you think of today that doesn't have some kind of health warning by the Government?
I don't think you can think of much. And the government has already started on obese people. Fast Foods, SUV's the list goes on. California lawmakers are even BANNING soft drinks from schools.
Tobacco isn't good for us, but what is?
55 million Americans choose to smoke. It isn't mustard gas. :) And it's not the big killer for non-smokers that our phony health coalitions are pumping into the public.
Yes.
Aside from your knee-jerk control of emotionally laden adjectives, abysmal ignorance about the facts, and parrot-like repetition of numbers established in Federal Courts to be fraudulent.
Not much...
Didn't we just go through all this just a few days ago?
Talk about trying to fertilize a rock...
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.