Smoking ban creates talk, but no action
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By ROD STETZER
rod.stetzer@lee.net
Wednesday, July 16, 2008 3:07 PM CDT
Julie Johnson says a smoking ban at Eau Claire taverns has not only caused a huge dip in her bar’s businesses, it’s made for a mess.
“Eau Claire has become a city dump,” the owner of the 5 O’Clock Club on Fenwick Avenue told the Chippewa Falls City Council on Tuesday. Drunks are going outside to smoke and leaving litter, she said.
“Do you want people and cigarette butts outside? ” she asked the council.
The city’s Transportation Committee, which oversees public safety issues, has spent three meetings looking into a potential workplace smoking ban, but so far has taken no action.
Eau Claire’s smoking ban took effect July 1.
“Our business as of this weekend has gone down 23 percent, and it’s only going to go down further,” Johnson said. Her tavern is a few feet from the city of Altoona, which allows smoking in taverns.
If the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration says it’s highly unlikely secondhand smoke will kill you, who are you to question that, Johnson said.
But a finding by the U.S. Centers of Disease Control comes to a different conclusion.
“For nonsmoking adults, secondhand smoke increases their lung cancer risk by at least 20 percent and their heart disease risk by at least 25 percent. Children exposed to secondhand smoke are at increased risk of asthma attacks, ear problems, acute respiratory infections and sudden infant death syndrome, health officials say,” The Associated Press reported.
A former Chippewa Falls council member, Chuck Hull, said the Transportation Committee is stalling.
“My concern is that (the committee) is not really addressing the issue,” said Hull, who favors a workplace smoking ban.
The council on a voice vote approved the minutes of last Thursday’s Transportation Committee, which took no action on the issue.
Mine opposition
Jeanette Kelly told the council she opposes a proposed sand mine in Chippewa County. Part of the operation would be near her home on Pine Acre Lane.
“We thought we had a great location. Now, suddenly, this is going to be threatened,” she said, adding she was particularly concerned by the amount of truck traffic needed for the operation.
Mayor Dan Hedrington said the city has been assured by Canadian Sand and Proppant, which is proposing the sand processing plant, that a washing system will remove a tremendous amount of dust generated by the project.
“This plant, I can assure you, will be top-of-the-line,” Hedrington said.
The city’s Plan Commission will hold a public hearing Monday, Aug. 11 on a plan for the city to form tax incremental district No. 11 for the sand mine project.
A TID or TIF is a redevelopment tool for cities. It uses future gains in taxes to finance current improvements in an area for development.
The council also heard from Caryn Ericksen-Wikan, president of the PTO of Hillcrest Elementary. She said if needed, the PTO will contribute toward a crosswalk to making the street crossings by the school safer for children. “We just see it as a hazard waiting to happen,” she said.
Hedrington said the issue will be on the next agenda of the city’s Board of Public Works.
Middleton votes to end smoking at work
MIDDLETON (AP) — Middleton has become the latest Wisconsin municipality to ban workplace smoking.
The Middleton Common Council voted 6-2 Tuesday night to approve an ordinance ending workplace smoking. The ban goes into effect March 15.
The Madison suburb is the eighth Wisconsin community to adopt a complete ban on workplace smoking. It has already banned smoking in restaurants.
American Cancer Society spokeswoman Alison Prange says this is a growing trend statewide.
She says people are no longer willing to wait for state action and will “do what it takes to make their communities healthier.’’
Twenty-five states including Minnesota, Illinois and Iowa have comprehensive smoking bans.
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