City snuffs out smoking in public spaces (Beaumont, TX)

[lastliberalintexas]

BEAUMONT - The Beaumont City Council on Tuesday voted 4 to 2 to prohibit smoking in enclosed public spaces, a ban as stringent as any in Texas.
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The ordinance allows smoking in private homes, hotel or motel rooms designated as smoking areas, retail tobacco stores, private clubs, buildings owned by fraternal organizations, theatrical performances and outdoor work places.
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At the March public hearing, Gay-Lynne Jones, Julie and Ben Rogers Cancer Institute clinical director, raised questions about the safety of workers in bars or restaurants that allow smoking.

She said she was ecstatic after the council voted because restaurant workers' health won't be put at risk and it prevents conflicting messages when they are doing anti-smoking education.

http://southeasttexaslive.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=16533845&BRD=2287&PAG=461&dept_id=512588&rfi=6


According to one local station, Bmt is the 4th city in Texas to enact an almost total smoking ban, behind Austin, Laredo and El Paso. All Democratic cities, fyi.

I am conflicted on the civil liberty issues involved in this, but as a non-smoker I'm thrilled. From articles I've read lately, studies of other areas in which a ban was enacted showed that businesses actually saw an uptick in sales/patrons due to patronage from people (like me) who'd previously avoided their smoke filled establishments. I hope that's true, because so many here are still recovering from last year's hurricane season that I'd hate to see us lose even more small mom and pops.

[Warpy]

1. There have been places I won't go

because they're filled with grey clouds of cigarette smoke. I'm horribly allergic to it, so not only have I had to avoid bars and restaurants, there have been jobs I've had to quit, insurance offices I couldn't use, convenience stores I couldn't stop in, and don't even mention a social life.

I love to see this coming to pass, even though it's a little too late to help me much.

It's hard not to feel sorry for smokers, though, huddled in rank smelling groups outside every building in rain and snow. I would greatly prefer to see designated smoking areas with roofs and heat lamps. The current system may protect me, but it seems downright punitive to smokers.

We can do better.

[fudge stripe cookays]

2. Good.

My father died at 47 of smoking. I was 13.

I spent years in clubs, choking, eyes watering, and clogged with smoky stench.

I can't help but think of Dana Reeve, who never smoked, but used to sing in smoky cabarets, who recently died of lung cancer. From secondhand smoke.

I have no sympathy for smokers. Sorry. Your habit kills people. Including yourselves.

There is no more of a testament to what smoking does to families than what happened to mine after my father died. 2 out of 3 of us do not speak to the others. I endured 8-9 years of hell with my mother's replacement guy, a complete asshole.

If my father was still alive, I know everything would be different. His selfish devotion to little white sticks killed our family along with him.

[FuzzyDicePHL]

3. "Your habit kills people"

and it funds conservatives.

I've always said that my main problem with smoking was that it causes a LONG, SLOW death. If it brought death more quickly, I wonder if people would be so quick to do it.

I'd ask my dad about that, but smoking killed him too, the selfish fucker.

[fudge stripe cookays]

4. Thanks Fuzzy.

I see we have lots in common.

:hug: Be strong.

[lastliberalintexas]

11. I'm very sorry fsc

I am one of the lucky ones, as my mother has thus far survived smoking related cancer. That has made me angry enough, I can't imagine how I would feel if she were to die from the disease. :(

:hug: to you sweetie.

[fudge stripe cookays]

Thanks LL.

I appreciate it.

It's only in the last few years, as my relationship with my mother has almost come to blows, and HAS come to homicidal threats (from her), that I've begun to get really mad about this issue.

I was always a daddy's girl. Even when I was 11, and my parents considered divorcing, there was no way I was going to go with my mother up to Idaho. Freaking Idaho of all places! Was she insane?

I hated her then. My feelings have only magnified in the last 25 years. I definitely got left with the shitty parent.

:hug:

[400Years]

5. But it's okay for all those chemical plants to spew all kinds of toxins

all over Beaumont.

[lastliberalintexas]

10. Every little bit helps

Beaumont is unfortunately dependent on the petrochem industry for its very survivial. I do wish that we could have better regulation of the emissions in this area, but that will never happen for a variety of reasons- one of the most important being that the wind patterns bring Houston area emission straight to the Golden Triangle. You think they could give a flip about them once they're out of Harris County testing range?

Many people in this area use the petrochem industry as an excuse to keep smoking, you live here and you'll hear it all the time. "The very air we breathe is worse than the cig smoke" and other such mularkey. Even if that's true (which it isn't), why voluntarily increase your body's intake of toxins by smoking? :crazy:

As I said, every little bit helps down here in Cancer Alley.

[400Years]

18. it is easier to pick on the individual since they have no money

unlike the corporations that run those chemical plants.

I think smoking is stupid but the dynamic here is all about beating up on those who have no clout.

I grew up around those chemical plants so I find smokers much less offensive.

I guess it's just a relative comparison thing.

You can walk out of a bar but you can't escape the air pollution from those plants.

[lastliberalintexas]

19. That's only part of it

Even if the cities of Bmt and Port Arthur had the political will to try to curtail emissions (which they don't), the state and/or the courts would strike those regs down. TCEQ is almost useless nowadays due to the Bush and Perry cronies who've made enforcement actions a joke, and with Scalia's reasoning that no plaintiff ever has standing in an environmental action ever almost being the law of the land, there is little else that can be done for now. It will take an incredible shift in political fortunes for that to happen, though I do hope it is coming.

I know it's piecemeal and imperfect, but it's better than nothing. JMHO. :)


Where did you grow up, by the way? It's always nice to run into a fellow SE Texan (?) here. :hi:

[400Years]

20. Yeah, back when it was called TNRCC

We called it trainwreck. Ha ha.

[maxsolomon]

6. where are the smoker's rights defenders today?

i'll play devils advocate: this ban will hurt the business at restaraunt & bars that cater to blue-collar patrons. in seattle, our recent state-wide ban has increased business at taverns in affluent areas, & resulted in layoffs at blue collar establishments, the kind of bars that feature pull tabs & boilermaker drinkers.

plus now you can smell all the flatus when you go see a band.

how dare you value the health of everyone above the profit of some? :sarcasm:

[Tiberius]

23. i'll never believe it hurts business

Studies of our Boston ban showed a dropoff in business followed within six months by it returning to normal levels. And as a non-smoker, I probably go out *more* often. No matter where I go, I know there won't be smoke...

[maxsolomon]

26. i hope you're right

we're not 6 months into it. the 'smoker's bars' are whinging something fierce.

[Theres-a]

7. .

:popcorn:

[Dulcinea]

8. Why not let the individual business owners decide?

If a bar owner wants to allow smoking in his/her establishment, s/he should be free to do so. If another bar owner chooses to be smoke-free, that's fine too. Freedom of choice, people! This is America!

Last time we banned a substance some people found objectionable (alcohol), we ended up with the Mafia.

[lastliberalintexas]

12. Different than Prohibition

The ordinance still allows people to smoke in certain venues, in open air spaces and in private residences. Prohibition made no allowances for people to even drink in the privacy of their own homes, and was thus more analogous to our failed War on Drugs policy.


As I said, I am somewhat conflicted about this due to the civil liberty issues you raise. At the same time, even this current laissez faire atmosphere doesn't allow businesses complete freedom on other issues, so why are smoking regs any different than the other regs to which businesses are subjected? :shrug:

[fudge stripe cookays]

13. The mafia was already around.

It was just much smaller. Ever heard of the Black Hand?

Prohibition just caused it to grow exponentially.

[Tiberius]

25. Here's the problem...

Every bar owner, given the choice, would ALWAYS allow smoking. This notion that "some owners would choose to be smoke-free" is total crap, give me a break.

The idea that just because someone owns the establishment, they should be permitted to allow some of their patrons to blow toxic carcinogens into the lungs of others, is contradictory to so many other rules that we set. We establish other community decency standards, so why is this an exception? If a bar owner wants to exclude African Americans, homosexuals, and women, then it's their choice... right? They own the bar, right? Puhleeeeze. :eyes:

[Joey Liberal]

9. It's a good law

Smokers leave their cigarette butts in the streets. Let em smoke in their own homes.

[Taverner]

14. I agree - even as a smoker I would have agreed with this

The smoke ruins meals and affects everyone around you.

A smoking section is not enough, unless it's outside.

I mean think about it, smoking is basically lighting a controlled fire. What restaraunt in the world would let you light the paper napkins on fire?

[DemExpat]

15. Beaumont is my birthplace - are you sure its a Dem city????

I would never have thought this.

:kick:

DemEx

[lastliberalintexas]

16. Yep- tho definitely not liberal!

Jefferson County was one of the few areas in this state to actually vote for both Gore and Kerry! Unfortunately, it also voted overwhelmingly for the same sex marriage ban. :( As I said, Dem, but not anywhere near liberal.

And of course that's also why we got screwed by Delay's re-redistricting plan. I was really looking forward to Lampson (from Bmt and only out of a job in Congress *because* of Delay) beating him this November!

[Gopens]

21. Lastliberal is right.

I was born in Beaumont and roughly spent 22 of my 39 years there. It's a reliably Democratic area, much to the chagrin of my Republican parents who still live there, but it's nowhere near liberal. There's still a heavy union presense in that part of the state that keeps the votes for Dems coming. I remember my dad complaining several years ago when the entire state voted for Kay Bailey Hutchison, but Beaumont and Jefferson County went to Gene Kelly.
There's no doubt the Democratic candidate will take Jefferson County in 2008, but I wouldn't get my hopes up waiting for the area to take up the full-fledged progressive mantle.
Still, its politically saner than 98 percent of the rest of the state, outside of Austin and some areas of South Texas.

[HughBeaumont]

17. Vehement anti-smoker here and I'm glad.

Lost my grandmother at the age of 49 and was-to-be MIL at 45 thanks to those things.

The sister-in-law and her life partner refuse to quit despite having yearly upper respiratory infections and light pneumonia. Every time they come over, they carry the stench of their enclosed gas chamber with them. My son spends even two hours over there after school and he has to take a shower right afterwards. Just recently, they wanted us to buy their surround sound/TV for grocery money. The WIFE, usually understanding and helpful, refused this time. Reason being is because they can't eat but can still somehow afford their cartons of Tourneys and Basics.

Myself, I don't get the APPEAL. The initial appeal, I mean . . . smoking smells horrible, looks stupid, is unsanitary, pollutes, makes you, the air, your breath and your clothes smell like ass, costs you about 7 to 12 hundred dollars a year for no other reason but to kill yourself slowly. At least with pot (don't smoke that either), there's somewhat of a reason to do it, you catch a decent buzz without the shitty moodiness that comes with alcohol. What do you get from cigarettes? SHIZ. NIT. A lot of disease and health problems, a lot of your money funnelled to dixie Repuke tobacco barons, stenched surroundings, secondhand smoke. What makes people look at Marlboros and say "Yeah, THAT'S for me!!"??

[genieroze]

22. As a smoker I can say personally to me pot smells worse then cigs when

burnt. Yes I have smoked pot but I can't stand the smell of it burning. They banned smoking in all public places in my whole state. No big deal. You can go a few hours without it. Chew some nic gum.

[jseankil]

24. Whats the average age of when someone starts smoking?

Find that answer and you'll find the answer to your question;

What makes people look at Marlboros and say "Yeah, THAT'S for me!!"??

[Don Claybrook]

27. ALL smokers started smoking for the same reason

full disclosure: I'm on my 7th week of not smoking after 21 years of heavy smoking, so I'm an ex-smoker, but only by a little.

My theory is that everyone who smokes started for the same reason I did: they thought it looked cool. Or made them look sexy, intelligent, edgy, whatever. Any way you slice it, people start smoking because they think it looks cool. Why else would you inhale the smoke of a non-psychoactive substance, at least initially? There's just not a good reason.