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Lawmakers anticipate success for smoking ban
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The statewide smoking ban is expected to become a reality during the upcoming legislative session, lawmakers said Tuesday.
Madison and Wausau have already implemented citywide restaurant smoking bans that have been in effect since 2005, and Eau Claire was the most recent city to pass a ban in March 2008. However, a proposal for a statewide smoking ban failed to pass the Republican-controlled state Assembly last March.
With the Democrats gaining control of the Assembly in November, adding to the already controlled state Senate and governor’s seat, it is expected they will push the bill through in the next session.
“I think there’s a pretty good chance that it will pass,” said. Rep. Kim Hixon, D-Whitewater.
Wisconsin would be following in the footsteps of other Midwest states, with Minnesota, Iowa and Illinois already having implemented a full smoking ban.
Minnesota also passed a law that went into effect on Tuesday requiring stores to sell fire-safe cigarettes, which will extinguish in a matter of minutes if not constantly smoked. Wisconsin passed this law as well in March 2008, and it will go into effect Oct. 1, 2009.
However, the smoking bans have not been without their problems. A lawsuit was just heard in Wausau regarding the right of a small business owner to allow patrons to smoke in his establishment.
Currently, customers in both Madison and Wausau can smoke in nonprofit private clubs for which they have paid a membership fee. The business owner argued it was discrimination if smoking was allowed in some businesses but not in others, adding it took away people’s freedoms.
Sen. Glenn Grothman, R-West Bend, agreed, saying, “I believe if you own a restaurant, you have the right to set the rules as in your own house. But over time, our society has developed less respect for diversity, and people want everyone to think and act like they do.”
Hixon disagreed, saying health inspectors make sure people are safe, making the personal freedom argument void.
“We’re a lot more intelligent than we were 25 years ago,” Hixon said. “We know about the dangers of secondhand smoke now. People can still smoke on the street; we’re not taking away that privilege, but where people are indoors or at work it’s a different story.”
However, Republicans in the state Assembly worry about something else for the owner: the loss of business.
Rep. Scott Suder, R-Abbotsford, said he and other Republicans would fight to delay or kill the bill because the danger it poses to small business owners through loss of revenue.
“There are many small businesses that are going to go down if that ban is passed,” Suder said. “They depend on those customers, and if the customers aren’t allowed to smoke, they are going to take their business somewhere else.”
Despite how many Republicans oppose the bill, both Suder and Grothman acknowledged the high possibility of the ban being passed during the next Assembly meeting.
“It’s always failed in the past, but it’s coming,” Grothman said.
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Ever since president elect Obama gave his speech indicating that he favored open discussion from BOTH sides of an issue before ramming it through by special interest groups, there seems to be a sudden panic movement to “hurry up and pass the ban” in communities across the nation. Open discussion is something the “tobacco control activists” try to avoid at all costs. Here are their instructions. www.no-smoke.org/pdf/CIA_Fundamentals.pdf
Fail this bill…If you don’t like a smokey place, don’t go there!
The passage of a smoking ban can’t come too soon for most of the people who live in Wisconsin. Most other areas of the country have already passed bans. Over 80 percent of adults and all children are non-smokers. Their health should take precedence over the minor inconvenience of taking smoke breaks outdoors.
The thought of a statewide smoking ban in Wisconsin is ridiculous. For example, pro-choice advocates of abortion always seem to fall back on the adage: what’s right for one person isn’t right for everyone, so let women do as they please with their own bodies. The same goes for smoking. Smoking, just as abortion, is a personal choice. Got a problem with secondhand smoke? Exercise your right to choose what businesses you sponsor and avoid places where you would come in contact with smokers. If you work in an establishment with smoking, relocate to Madison. You’ll find plenty of liberal friends here who are willing to regulate - and in this case, restrict - your personal freedoms.
It’s Hixson
“Over 80 percent of adults and all children are non-smokers. Their health should take precedence over the minor inconvenience of taking smoke breaks outdoors.” ……………… “all children are non-smokers.”
CDC data shows that about 23% of high school children are smokers.
How are smoking bans in bars and restaurants going to protect their health?
Kids spend very little time in bars and restaurants,how are smoking bans going to protect their health?
80% of adults may not smoke;but,smokers do not only marry other smokers.
About 45% of households have one or more smoking adults in them.
Kids spend much more time at home as compared to restaurants and bars.
How is banning smoking in bars and restaurants going to protect kids’ health?
Let businesses regulate themselves. If an establishment wants it be be non smoking they have that right. If one doesn’t want to go to establishment that allows smoking just don’t go. How much easier can this be?
Smoking is nothing like abortion. By smoking you are choosing to harm yourself, but you are choosing to harm those around you. You don’t have that right.
As far as businesses regulating themselves, that won’t happen. Businesses won’t make a change for the public good if it affects their bottom line. This is why we have a legislature, to make decisions that are in the best interests of everyone. If we had left it up to businesses, we wouldn’t have a minimum wage, child labor laws, the five day work week or real OSHA requirements to protect employees. Businesses fought every one of these safeguards, and would never have “self regulated” as ridiculous pro-business groups keep claiming.
Having worked in a resturant as a teenager and having to come home smelling like an ashtray, this ban can not come soon enough.
Working an 8 or 10 hour shift in a resturant or bar is like chain smoking, it’s even sadder to see a pregnant waitress in a smoke filled resturant.
Some of you make a good point. It seems there are valid issues in both camps. There is a ridiculous misconception continuously propagated in the defense of smoking. Smoking is not a right. The ‘right’ smokers refer to is the right to have a habit. A personal habit. Smokers are in fact defending their right to have a habit, not the right to have a right. I too defend the right to have a personal habit. I am a non smoker. I have a right to breathe clean air just as smokers do when they are not in the act of fulfilling their personal habit. Clean air is not a habit. It actually exists in the absence of smoke (and other pollutants of course), and doesn’t contain nicotine. The ingestion of nicotine is really the goal of the (smoker’s) habit. If it isn’t prove me wrong and remove the drug and see how long the habit lasts. Find a way to ingest the nicotine without burning leaves (or spitting) and we may find a resolution. Smokers prefer to ingest the drug via burning leaves hence the label ‘smoker’. There are drug laden patches available that provide a legal smoke free way to ingest nicotine. How about making it a habit to stick a patch on your skin when in public and smoke like it’s the day before you quit when you are in the privacy of your home? (now I am preaching) I bet we would find patches replacing the butts that many smokers have a habit of discarding just about everywhere but in a waste basket. And be mindful of the environment and example you (smokers) provide for the little people in your life that have less choice in the habits they partake in.