Saturday, February 16, 2008

McKinney Tavern reacts early to smoking ban

In addition to yellow teeth and lung cancer, smoking apparently causes blindness.

MCKINNEY — A ring of smokers stood outside the McKinney Tavern Wednesday night, their cigarettes glowing in the frigid and blustery evening air.

“I’m not happy about it,” said Al Carr, a self-described Tavern regular. “Why run off all your business now? Everybody is going to have to do it in September anyway. Doing it now just doesn’t make any sense.”

Carr was referring to the Tavern’s new proactive smoking ban, one that the establishment self-imposed January 1.

The Tavern didn’t have to curtail smoking so soon. As of January 1, only new restaurants in town are mandated to enforce the city’s new no-smoking policy while preexisting establishments have until Sept. 4 to enforce the new law.

“We told [our customers] it was going to come,” John Volpe, co-owner of McKinney Tavern said. “We’re trying to get the kinks out before September, so we’ll know how it works, so we’ll be in compliance rather than have to change at the last minute and risk running into problems.”

The ordinance bans smoking in all public places and enclosed places of employment within the city including retail stores, offices, restaurants, all means of public transit, museums, theaters, public parks, hospitals and common use areas in apartments and other buildings.

The ordinance allows smoking in private residences, including porches, yard areas and personal automobiles. Smoking is also allowed in outdoor places of employment, public sidewalks and parking lots within public parks that are more than 25 feet from a door or window.

Tavern co-owner Bob Volpe, John’s brother, is a former 30-year smoker. Bob, 67-years-old, said the city’s smoking ban reminded him of the times he used to fly and was asked to sit in the back of the plane to do his smoking, something he defiantly refused to do.

“It reminded me of the time when people were told to sit in the back of the bus,” Bob said, referring to the indignities African-Americans suffered before the civil rights movement.

City councilman Bill Cox, who voted against the smoking ban last fall, said he empathizes with those who appreciate breathing smoke-free air when out in public. But Cox is also a firm believer in freedom of choice.

“The reason I voted against ordinance - I think it certainly is one’s right to spend their money in a restaurant that allows smoking , just like it’s one’s right to choose a restaurant that doesn’t allow smoking,” Cox, a non-smoker, said. “One should have the right as a customer and as a business owner to make the smoking decision and I don’t feel it’s the government’s role to determine that.”

The brothers Volpe are making plans to build a covered patio area for smoking customers, but with the “25 feet from a door or window” qualification in the city’s mandate, they’re not entirely sure their plans will meet the city’s strict non-smoking guidelines.

“Look at all the windows we’ve got,” Bob said. “I’m not sure if we can build a patio. Does this mean we’ve got to build 25 feet from the building?”

John, a smoker, said he hopes that a partially weatherproof smoking patio can be built to satisfy the city’s requirements while keeping his smoking customers comfortable and happy.

“Right now I’m out there on the street with the rest of [the smokers],” he said with a grin. “We’d like to build a patio with a roof, something to protect you from the winter cold and the summer heat.”

Meanwhile, smoking regulars at the Tavern are trying to make do with the new restriction – for the time being.

“I feel like, ‘Where’s our rights?’ Eileen Carr said as she took another drag off her quickly disappearing Virginia Slims in the darkness that encased the Tavern's front sidewalk. “What’s the government going to do next?”

Eileen and her husband, Al, said they’d roll with the punches when all of McKinney becomes smoke free in September.

“We’ll be making our way to Addison or Richardson,” the two staunch smokers agreed. “There are other places to go.”

Pegasus News content partner - McKinneyNews.net

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FXR Anonymous

The practice of "managing diseases", the strategy adopted recently in public health partnerships, has now been accepted internationally in place of a legitimate search for medical cures, which could allay all fears. It is entirely curious at a time when those cures are finally coming within our grasp, they will be delayed once again. Disease Management as a strategy, can not avoid the underlying reality; you have to micro-manage the personal lives of individuals and promote segregation, hatred and bigotry within communities in order to make it effective. Ignorance of human rights and personal freedom can never be overlooked or simply ignored in hopes they will just go away.

The vote enabling a smoking ban, could more correctly be described as a vote on the public acceptance of bigotry. The same people who propose such laws ignore the fact they wear deodorants and perfumes rich in much higher concentrations of toxins than a cigarette could ever contain. The fresh air they covet is ripe with their choice of what they willingly inhale.

Someone who calls them self a smoker, are living the created lie which was necessary in separating them from the rest of the community, with widely brushed perspectives. You are a person with free will, who uses a product on the shelf along side deodorants deodorizers and perfumes all of which we all accept in life as a civil respect, and understanding of the choices others may make.

Second hand smoke [EBS] as a significant health risk, is no more real than the monster under your bed. A creation to sell fear; promoting irresponsibility, by coercive process. A reality which will reflect on all of us, in what other “protections” we will accept as moral and justified.

They hung doctors at Nuremberg, yet surprisingly, not a single propagandist was ever tried or convicted. Waldheim went on to lead the UN where those propagandists he influenced continue to spread his hateful messages today. Hitler devised the term second hand smoke, which licensed bigotry as a national expectation. The Journalists have brought that message home with an enthusiastic roar.

In 1975 Sir George Goober, British delegate to the World Health organization presented his blueprint for eliminating tobacco use worldwide by changing social attitudes.

"..it would be essential to foster an atmosphere where it was perceived that active smokers would injure those around them, especially their families and any infants or young children who would be exposed involuntarily to EST.." Tobacco Control at the British Medical Journal an article [linked] by the editor; Chapman who indicates the hatred of the "spoiled identity" has grown beyond all control.

http://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/cgi/con...

"The litmus test of a society is still, as Jefferson said, that the rights of the majority stop at the doorstep of the minority." ~ Beryl Wajsman; the last angry man.

9 months, 2 weeks ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )

snowbird Anonymous

There has never been a single study showing that exposure to the low levels of smoke found in bars and restaurants with decent modern ventilation and filtration systems kills or harms anyone.

As to the annoyance of smoking, a compromise between smokers and non-smokers can be reached, through setting a quality standard and the use of modern ventilation technology.

Air ventilation can easily create a comfortable environment that removes not just passive smoke, but also and especially the potentially serious contaminants that are independent from smoking.

Thomas Laprade Thunder Bay, Ont.

9 months, 2 weeks ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )

McKinney Tavern reacts early to smoking ban

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