City council sets meeting to discuss smoking ban
The Boone Liberty Coalition issued a position paper against the proposed ban.
Published Sept. 8, 2006
The public smoking ban in Columbia is a step closer to consideration by the City Council.
The Columbia City Council met Tuesday and approved a public hearing on Oct. 9 about the proposed smoking ordinance. Unless further investigation is required, the council will most likely vote on the smoking ordinance following the public hearing Oct. 9, city spokeswoman Toni Messina said.
"The council members felt it was an important issue that many people would want to talk about," Messina said. "They didn't want to cut anyone's time short."
The proposed ordinance would prohibit smoking in public bars, restaurants and other institutions in Columbia. The ordinance would also ban smoking in outdoor patios.
During the past year and a half, there has been much debate in response to the proposed ban. Coalitions pleading both sides of the argument have raised awareness and attended public hearings regarding the issue to argue their own positions.
One of those coalitions, the Boone Liberty Coalition (BLC), issued a position paper on the proposed smoking ordinance on June 9. The paper briefly outlined four main oppositions to the ban and provided recommendations for better solutions. The first of the four points discussed freedom of choice.
The coalition's stance, according to the paper, is that employees and customers are able to choose where to work and patronize.
"Smoking is a bad choice, but it is (an individual's) choice," said John Dupuy, co-founder of the BLC.
Dupuy said the more civil liberties that are given up to the government means more control over your life.
That argument loses significance because of other approved government regulations on business, said Dean Andersen, co-chair of the Boone County Coalition on Tobacco Concerns.
Anderson said employee protection laws regarding lead, mercury and asbestos are similar to a smoking ban.
"We regulate business all the time when it is in better interest of the public," he said.
The second part of the position paper states that the free market is working to remove smoking from businesses. A survey taken by the BLC shows nearly two-thirds of restaurants in Columbia already voluntarily ban indoor smoking. If the trend continues, more than 80 percent of restaurants could be smoke-free in five years.
Despite a vast selection of restaurants to frequent, Andersen felt that the health of employees is just as important as customers and those who work in smoke-free areas.
"People have had to quit their job because of secondhand smoke," he said. "People shouldn't have to choose between their job and being exposed to second-hand smoke."
Economic impacts of a smoking ban have also been heavily discussed. Dupuy said he believes that after contacting restaurant and lodging associations, they are definitely on his side and see the ban as a property rights issue.
On the other hand, Andersen said he thinks there are many businesses that want to go smoke-free but do not want to upset their customer base.
"Many business owners want the city to take care of the ban so they don't have to appear as the bad guy," he said.
But, as Dupuy puts it, the restaurant business is a truly competitive industry.
"A restaurant owner is basically an entertainer," he said. "You do what the customers want."
Finally, the issue of health risks is addressed on the position paper. Both Andersen and Dupuy agree smoking is unsafe but want different solutions to the problem. Dupuy offered alternative solutions to public smoking, such as furthering education on the harms of secondhand smoke. He said it was a bad answer to simply take away rights.
"The smoking industry is evil," Dupuy said. "But you do not want to fight evil with evil."