Posted on 01/10/2003 7:41:00 PM PST by Max McGarrity
Secondhand smoke "might make your hair smell," but it's not a proven health risk, Bears-coach-turned-restaurant-owner Mike Ditka said Thursday, leading the charge against a proposed restaurant smoking ban in Chicago.
With a cigar in one hand and a drink in the other, Ditka said his steelworker father was living proof that it's baloney for medical experts to claim that exposing a restaurant employee to an eight-hour shift's worth of secondhand smoke is the equivalent of smoking a half a pack of cigarettes.
"My dad smoked four packs of Luckies from the time he was 12 until the time he was 60. He lived to 80. He died of hardening of the arteries. He didn't die from what smoking caused. He worked in the steel mill where every morning, you woke up and there was half an inch of soot on the cars," Ditka said.
"People who have survived in industrial areas of our country late into their 80s and 90s have inhaled more smoke than all the smoking in the world can give you. I find it hard to believe that people try to shove the secondhand smoke theory down your throat because I don't believe it. I don't believe it even hurts you. It might make your hair smell a little bit, but that's about it."
Ditka said he has nothing against Ald. Edward M. Burke (14th), the City Council's leading anti-smoking crusader. He simply believes the restaurant business would "suffer tremendously" if Burke and Health Committee Chairman Ed Smith (28th) persuaded their colleagues to ban smoking in restaurants and bars.
"These people who are popping off and throwing their weight around better open up their eyes and understand that you've got freedoms in America. If you don't want to come in this restaurant, don't come in. If you don't want to go where people smoke, don't go. They run the City Council. Let the people down here run the restaurants," Da Coach said.
Reminded that smoking has been banned for years in California restaurants and bars, Ditka said: "That's fruits and nuts. That's what they are. A lot of liberals. . .. All the do-gooders in the world. The people in California who abolished smoking are the same people who want to legalize marijuana. Come on. Give me a break."
At a Health Committee meeting earlier this week, restaurant owners attempted to slow the anti-smoking steamroller.
They warned that a Chicago-only restaurant smoking ban would send customers fleeing to the suburbs and prompt conventions to move elsewhere. They argued the ban would create an enforcement nightmare, with confrontations between tip-seeking servers and their customers.
Mayor Daley sympathized, called for more City Council hearings on the controversy and backed away from his earlier endorsement of a restaurant smoking ban.
On Thursday, restaurant employees held a news conference at Ditka's Restaurant, 100 E. Chestnut, to reiterate those arguments and pile on a few more.
"This city is rich in character--full of taverns, neighborhood joints, steakhouses and family restaurants. A smoking ban would completely expunge that character. It would absolutely reduce this city to another generic, dime-a-dozen, two-bit town," said Glenn Garlisch, a waiter at the Chicago Chop House, 60 W. Ontario.
And many psychiatrists state unequivocally that one's need to control others may stem from premature potty training. The term is "anal retentive." If the shoe fits...
Ain't it amazing this man is still alive.
BY the way, Tacis has become just another hit and run poster. :-}
Oh we're going there are we??
Ok, I'll play...If only Yosemite Sam hadn't stuck his head into that canon hatch...
Not if you two hold hands and look both ways before prancing across the Turnpike together clutching your half-smoked Marlboro Lights.
Hey Maxy -- purse your lips...insert oral-fixated "object" (remind yourself it's only a cigarette)...and inhale...
You have a kindred spirit.
Good point. It's no prblem of mine whatever you choose to do in the privacy of your own home.
So what?
Enlighten us please. What pray tell is your definition of freedom? Exactly how is Ditka limiting your freedom?
How so?
Amen to that! I smoked for 35 years, got lung cancer in 1998, and was given less than a year to live. Thanks to God, good doctors and a special diet, I'm still here and cancer-free. But even if the cancer doesn't get you, smoking anything usually results in some form of COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease). If you like inhalers four times a day and oxygen at night and the inability to walk up a slight grade without huffing, just keep smoking -- first or secondhand.
Carolyn
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