If state and federal coffers didn't need the cigtaxrevenue, they'd be shipping us out on trains for resettlement.
Posted on 03/17/2004 8:52:49 AM PST by writer33
OLYMPIA _ Spokane-area restaurateurs, bar owners and anti-smoking activists are gearing up for battle over two proposed initiatives to limit smoking.
"We think we have the momentum," said Cheney's Tedd Nealy, a farmer and substitute teacher who's supporting the stronger of the two initiatives: a ban on indoor smoking in public places.
"If this has worked in six other states, including our biggest-populated state of California, it can work anywhere," he said.
Filed Monday by Breathe Easy Washington, a group of smoking foes, the tougher ban is backed by the state medical and dental associations. Co-chairman Kevin Phelps said the group expects to spend $1 million to $1.5 million collecting signatures and promoting the ballot initiative.
A second initiative was filed Friday by owners of smoke-friendly businesses. It would ban indoor smoking in areas with children, such as restaurants or bowling alleys. But smoking would still be allowed in bars, lounges, taverns and casinos.
"Our initiative is a more reasoned approach," said Linda Matson, executive director of the Entertainment Industry Coalition. The group's proposal would also prevent city or county officials from passing tougher bans, like Pierce County's health department did in January. Owners of bars and restaurants have appealed the Pierce County ban in court.
Both of the smoking-ban initiatives now face the same hurdle: Organizers have until July 2 to gather 198,000 signatures to put the measure on the November ballot.
At The Swinging Doors, a sports bar and restaurant in Spokane, owner Bob Materne -- a non-smoker -- doesn't like either initiative.
"This whole thing really infuriates me," he said. "Are they going to next say you can't smoke in your own house or your own car?"
Even the more modest initiative forces him to make a choice he doesn't want to: ban smoking or ban children. It's a simple business decision -- he'd have to ban kids and keep the higher-paying smokers -- but Materne said it would be a sad day. He's a grandfather, and sponsor of a youth hockey team. Families like his place, he said, because he's spent more than $20,000 on air scrubbers.
Proponents of the flat-out ban call it a workers' rights issue. Servers, musicians and Bingo hall staff work in smoky environments, inhaling the sort of second-hand smoke banned from offices years ago under Washington's Clean Indoor Air Act.
"Being a bartender or waitress is not a crime. It should not carry the death penalty," said Chris Covert-Bowlds, a Bellingham doctor supporting the Breathe Easy proposal.
That initiative was filed by Patty Carlson, a 50-year-old waitress at a Seattle bowling alley. After 25 years as a waitress and bartender, she said, she feels sick after every shift. Her eyes hurt. Her throat's sore.
"When I started doing this, people smoked on the bus, in the doctor's office, everywhere," she said. "Then, gradually, everyone else got protection."
In January, she joined a busload of anti-smoking advocates headed to Olympia to talk to lawmakers. But legislators weren't interested in passing a law to limit smoking further, she said. And she thinks she knows why: Second-hand smoke isn't much of an issue on the Capitol campus.
"There were signs all over that said, `No smoking 25 feet from the building,"' Carlson said.
Smokers' rights advocates argue that employees who don't like smoking can find work elsewhere. But in a depressed economy it's not that easy, Carlson said. She's a single mom, supporting a 16-year-old son, and said she put out hundreds of resumes before finding her bowling alley job.
At a news conference Monday, Carlson was flanked by musicians who said they're tired of performing in smoky clubs. They have no choice, they said.
"I've never had a cigarette in my mouth," said Anne Gilett, a Mount Vernon keyboardist who said her lung capacity is 50 percent of normal. "I really resent smokers literally taking away my breath."
A complete ban is better for workers than allowing smoking to continue in bars and gambling facilities, Nealy said.
"We wanted to do it completely: no smoking allowed in indoor areas," he said. "We don't want any loopholes."
Regardless of any initiative, business groups argue, there's a huge loophole. Indian tribal facilities, where the state has no jurisdiction, don't have to comply.
"That makes no sense economically, to make one whole sector of the entertainment industry exempt," said Matson, executive director of the Entertainment Industry Coalition.
What will happen under Breathe Easy Washington's ban, Matson predicts, is that smokers will take their money and move, en masse, to tribal restaurants and casinos. And that will cripple nontribal businesses.
"There's a whole lot of people who won't be `breathing easy' on the unemployment line," she said.
Ah, but I have. In the Navy for 7 years and was in the Philippines for 5 1/2 years of it, off base for three weeks when they kicked Marcos out because they blocked the base gates. I had a toe to thigh cast on my leg and couldn't swim out to the boats taking people back to the base.
Been present in various locales in Southeast Asia when the $hit has hit the fan. Body parts, dead, wounded, etc.
I've seen it.
Be careful what you hope for.
The reason I hope I AM around at that point is because if we let it wait, there may be FAR fewer who will fight it, due to govt instilled brainwashing happening even today (see zero tolerance), thus a better chance of losing.
I don't want to see it again but if it's going to happen, IMO let it happen soon.
If state and federal coffers didn't need the cigtaxrevenue, they'd be shipping us out on trains for resettlement.
I guess there will be just such an opportunity to do this as the general election approaches. If either (or both) of these initiatives makes it to the ballot, they will be on the same one with John Kerry and Osama Mama Patty Murray.
Frankly, I see either one or the other passing, one third of our electorate in this state lives in the county where Seattle is located. We're probably going to vote for Kerry, too (this state even was one of the few that went for Dukakis way back when), and I'm not holding my breath on getting rid of Murray, either.
At least the pro-smoking people here should be glad that the anti-smoking forces have to resort to the expensive route of going through the initiative process. It's a tough, costly process, and generally, the only things that make it through the process to become law have been tax-limiting proposals, although if the teachers' union has the hots for something, they can get it through that way, too. I've seen the checks written by tobacco companies for campaign contributions, my ex was the treasurer for a local state representative, looks like they're still staying bought. The tobacco companies can finance a large "no" campaign on this issue if it gets to the ballot, it should help the local economy, I guess.
Well, shoot. I don't drink!
Because the anti-smokers CAN'T SMELL IT?
Well, Maine is passing a law that FOSTER PARENTS can't smoke around the kids and they can't smoke IN their car 24 hours before a KID gets into their vehicle!
HaHaaaaaaa! (((Joe)))
I refuse to be taken down without my mouth firing shots. LOL!
They always say when a debate gets personal, that means the other person just lost knowledge about what he is debating and needs to carry on with personal attacks. And here I sit.....thousands of miles FROM this person, so where the heck do they get off, attacking me? They don't even KNOW me. But oh boy! Just because I smoke, look out! That makes me fair game. Not!
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