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NAUGATUCK -- A public works employee who refused to ride in a snow plow in which another employee was smoking will not receive payment for that day. On June 30, the State Board of Mediation and Arbitration did award Robert Riley four hours of pay at his normal rate, which is required by contract every time a worker is called into work overtime. "I felt it was a very fair hearing," said Susan Hurlburt, the borough's director of human resources. Riley's grievance claimed that he should receive nine hours of double-time pay because a supervisor told him if he did...

A MYSTERY tobacco crusader has been visiting pubs in the south of the country. The phantom smoker, who goes by the name of Wandering Minstrel, has unleashed a campaign of defiance against the anti-smoking crackdown by visiting pubs nationwide, openly smoking - and then leaving his calling card. He launched his campaign in Cork but his defiance has now taken in other counties. The Wandering Minstrel immediately leaves a premises once instructed to put out his cigarette. While the campaign was initially greeted with grudging admiration by publicans, the heavy fines threatened against all premises breaching the regulations has sparked...

Pub Owner First to Be Fined Over Smoking Ban Wed Jul 21, 7:25 AM ET Add Oddly Enough - Reuters to My Yahoo! DUBLIN (Reuters) - An Irish publican became the first bar owner in the country Tuesday to be successfully prosecuted for breaking the government's pioneering smoking ban, court officials said. Padraig Folan, owner of the Ti Hanrai pub in the village of Lettermore in the far west of Ireland, was fined 1,200 euros ($1,500) and ordered to pay 500 euros in costs for failing to enforce the ban. Ireland introduced the law in March, becoming the first country...

Larry Isaacson's nose is so sensitive to perfume that he gets woozy, loses his appetite and can develop an itchy rash that blooms behind his ears when he is exposed to it. So when a colleague recently slathered on perfume that emanated well beyond her personal space, Mr. Isaacson found himself employing his usual tactics. They include avoidance, which means standing several feet away from the cloud and holding his breath until it passes. If trapped in close proximity for an extended time, he breathes through his mouth. And his most passive tactic, which sometimes works best: waiting for someone...

"The Swedish organization A Non Smoking Generation covered Stockholm in posters claiming that smoking stunts penis growth and that cigarette filters are filled with mouse excrements, along with other lies aimed at getting kids to stop smoking," Agence France-Presse reports: "We wanted to raise awareness about how the tobacco industry always promotes its products--through lies," head of the organization Anne-Therese Enarsson told AFP. "Our lies are so exaggerated that we hope they will make people stop and think, and then come to our website to find the truth," she added. One wonders if it's occurred to ANSG that their lies...

Lawmaker wants smoke-free Pa. bars and restaurants Tuesday, July 20, 2004Pittsburgh Post-Gazette An influential state senator is proposing to extend smoking bans into Pennsylvania’s bars and restaurants. Stewart Greenleaf, R-Montgomery County, today announced he would push for legislation that would follow a pattern set by seven other states, including California and New York. A press release from Greenleaf said business is actually up in New York City bars and restaurants. In Florida, where smoking is banned in restaurants but not bars, restaurant business increased, Greenleaf said. __________________________________________ More details in tomorrow’s Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Senate plan ties FDA regulation to eliminating quotasBy NANCY ZUCKERBROD Associated Press WASHINGTON - The Senate approved a plan Thursday to put new restrictions on cigarette makers and pay tobacco farmers $12 billion to give up federal quotas propping up their prices. An unlikely alliance of anti-smoking advocates and tobacco-state senators teamed up to secure the 78-15 vote to combine a 10-year buyout for tobacco growers with new Food and Drug Administration powers. The measure was added as an amendment to a corporate tax bill and broke weeks of deadlock over how to proceed with negotiations on that bill....

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Senate overwhelmingly approved a landmark tobacco deal on Thursday to give the Food and Drug Administration long-sought power to regulate cigarettes and give $12 billion in aid to tobacco farmers. Though hailed as a breakthrough by public health groups, the measure faces an uncertain future because it was approved as part of a massive corporate tax bill that must still be reconciled with the House of Representatives's version. Those talks are expected to be long and complex. The lopsided 78-15 vote will strengthen the Senate position in those negotiations, and many lawmakers who want greater public...

DUBLIN, Ireland (AP) - A lone Galway pub has thrown down the gauntlet to the Irish government over its 3-month-old ban on workplace smoking - by inviting customers to rebel and light up. "We're taking a stand," declared Ciaran Levanzin, co-owner of the Fibber Magee's pub in the central Eyre Square of Galway, where ashtrays returned to tables Tuesday and customers were encouraged to puff away. It marked the first deliberate effort by any of Ireland's more than 10,000 pubs to defy the ban. The measure has been almost universally observed - and, in a country where 70 percent of...

ONCE they plied Hollywood stars with free cigarettes and paid producers to feature their brands. From Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall in The Big Sleep to Sean Connery as James Bond, smoking in films often seemed sexier than most Hollywood love scenes. Now cigarette companies are lobbying Hollywood studios to remove shots showing characters smoking their products. In Paramount Pictures’ film Twisted Samuel L Jackson, the film’s star, is clearly seen lighting a Marlboro at a key moment. In the past Philip Morris, the world’s largest tobacco firm, would have welcomed such free advertising. But no longer. The company’s vice-president,...

Anti-smoking advocates would like movies that portray smoking to carry an R rating. The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) doesn’t care for that idea much. The organization’s resistance might have something to do with the fact that R rated movies as a rule aren’t as profitable as those with softer ratings. Or maybe it’s worried that if a concession is made to one bunch of self-appointed do-gooders, it’ll have to do it for others. So what does one group, such as the anti-smoking activists, do when another group, such as the MPAA, won’t get with the program? Run to...

Friday's National Non-Smoking Day turned out to be a non-event for several for smokers The Royal Gazette caught up with. One smoker, who did not want to be named, said she had "no idea it was going on", and "was not sure if she would not have smoked if she had known". The Hamilton office worker who was outside smoking said that she "did not think it would have made a difference." Another man said he thought it was "a stupid idea because people should have choices. They have choices for everything else, we should have choices if we smoke...

OSLO, Norway - Ireland’s pioneering ban on smoking in pubs and restaurants seems to be helping some addicts to kick the habit and may be promoting a new way to meet people, Ireland’s health minister said on Tuesday. Micheal Martin, visiting Norway which in June becomes the second nation in the world after Ireland to outlaw smoking in bars and restaurants, said the Irish ban was working well since its launch at the end of March. The nationwide laws, inspired by bans in places such as California and New York City, are meant to protect waiters and other workers from...

Dipartimento di Scienze dell'Invecchiamento, Universita La Sapienza, Roma. Cigarette smoking has been clearly linked to the most common causes of death in the elderly and contributes to the higher death rate and disability rate associated with many chronic illnesses that are common in this age group. The combination of smoking along with other risk factors like hypertension and diabetes increase high frequency disease, and disability as well as adding to an increase in mortality rate. In order to verify if a healthy lifestyle really favours longevity and how much smoking is incompatible with extreme longevity, we investigated the prevalence of...

<p>May 13, 2004 -- AUDREY Hepburn did it. So did Humphrey Bogart, Bette Davis, Nicole Kidman and, famously, Olivia Newton-John. But you'll never see another movie star smoke on screen if the anti-smoking lobby has its way.</p> <p>Critics of the tobacco industry want Hollywood to treat on-screen smoking the same way it treats indecent language and nudity - with an R rating from the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA).</p>

A students' union is lifting its new restrictions on smoking after losing more than £26,000 in bar takings in 13 days. Leeds University union imposed a ban on lighting up in its buildings before 7pm for a month-long trial. It runs five bars and three nightclubs across three sites and provides entertainment for about 33,000 students. The ban came into force on Feb 16 with smoking forbidden through the night in The Terrace bar and part of The Old Bar on the Leeds campus. The nightclubs were unaffected. Almost 100 complaints were received from smokers, but officials were finally persuaded...

Toledo bar owners find loophole to let patrons light upTOLEDO — James Pierson sat at the corner of the bar with a cigarette in his hand and a court summons in his coat pocket.The retired autoworker was charged about a month ago with violating the city’s ban on smoking in bars and restaurants.That wasn’t stopping him from a beer and another cigarette."In reality, I’m breaking the law right now," said Pierson, 62, of Temperance, Mich. "Everybody should stand up for their rights."Defiant smokers and tavern owners in cities where smoking has been outlawed are rising up to protest, staging "smokeins"...

BOSTON -- The push for a statewide smoking ban hit a snag in the state Legislature yesterday when a senator successfully blocked the formation of a committee charged with drafting a compromise version of the legislation. Late last year, the Senate and House of Representatives both passed slightly different versions of a statewide ban on smoking in the workplace. Last week, House leaders appointed several state representatives who will meet behind closed doors with their Senate counterparts to hash out the differences between the two bills. The Senate was poised to name three senators to serve on that "conference committee"...

Cigar-loving Arnie plans a 'smoking plaza' at state capitol By Oliver Poole in Los Angeles (Filed: 17/02/2004) Arnold Schwarzenegger, California's cigar-smoking governor, is to tear a roof off the state capitol so that smokers can enjoy their vice inside the legislature. The Austrian-born actor, elected governor last November, is facing protests for deciding to turn a courtyard in the building into a "smoking plaza". It will include a drinking area. Part of the roof will be removed to get round a California law banning smoking in offices, bars and restaurants. Arnold Schwarzenegger's plan has angered the anti-smoking lobby The governor's...

<p>February 16, 2004 -- KAPPA Beta Phi, whose motto is "we sing, we dance," should now be changed to "we sing, we dance, we smoke" - after recent published reports outed the esteemed society's blatant disregard for Mayor Bloomberg's silly smoking ban, and in his presence no less.</p>