It's Time To Lift The Smoke Screen From Local Businesses

Oregon Daily Emerald - 07/25/00

In industrial workplaces around the nation, pollutants including toxins and carcinogens are banned ­­ unless they're coming from the end of a lit cigarette.

Smoking should be a cut and dry issue. The hard reality is that tobacco causes or contributes to almost 25 percent of all deaths in Oregon, according to an article written last November by Grant Higgison, a state health officer with the Oregon Health Division. Everyone, with the exception of claims from those who recently won large settlements against the tobacco industry, starts smoking with the knowledge it's unhealthy.

However, that's the benefit of freedom of choice -- smokers have the right to make the decision whether or not to put a "death stick" in their mouth. But do the rest of us?

If the Eugene City Council chooses to put to vote an ordinance which would ban smoking in all businesses of two or more employees, Eugene residents will have that choice. Corvallis passed a "smoke-free business" law in 1998, the same year that the Oregon Health Division kicked off it's tobacco-use reduction program. During the last two years, Oregon tobacco consumption has been reduced by 11 percent, and the number of smokers fell by 6.4 percent, a total of 35,000 smokers.

That's 500 million fewer cigarettes sold each year with a future savings of over $150 million, in Oregon alone. Impressive numbers and a clear indicator that the program and efforts on the part of cities such as Corvallis are working.

As Eugene faces an attack from the anti-tobacco movement, City Council members are turning to Corvallis as an example for what worked and what didn't. Though many agree that the idea of smoke-free businesses is a good one, criticism from bars has some claiming mixed views. Some smokers and bar owners argue that a part of bar tradition is the smoky atmosphere, and that bar patrons can choose not to visit the bar if that's a problem.

How fair is that, considering 66 percent of bar patrons are non-smokers? Don't they deserve the clean air? After all, those with a drink can't exactly "step outside" to get out of the smoke in the way smokers can take a "step outside" to allow the rest of us to breathe uncontaminated air.
Besides the customers, it doesn't give the employees of businesses a choice, especially the bartenders or cocktail servers who are often burned by carelessly held cigarettes, and who are exposed to second-hand smoke.

Speaking of second-hand smoke, what about the children in restaurants who are exposed to this health risk? According to the World Health Organization, second-hand smoke seriously damages the health of almost half the world's children. And we're worried about kids washing their hands to prevent germs and illness?

However, old habits die hard. The question of concern is: Will isolating the one-third of bar patrons who do smoke irreparably damage the bar scene as we now know it? According the OHD, no. Sixty-five percent of Corvallis bar customers say they like the bar experience better now than when smoking was allowed. Of course, it doesn't take a genius to realize that those are likely the 65 percent of bar customers who don't smoke. However, food and alcohol sales have not been affected, and nine of 10 customers in the Corvallis area are spending as much or more time in bars as they did before the ordinance went into effect.

The numbers are in and it's about common sense. If the Eugene ban is put into effect, which it should be, we'll look back two years from now and wonder how we ever thought allowing smoking in public places was "no big deal."

*Note: The Eugene Ban went into effect and Eugene has been smoke-free for the past 7 years.