Fitzsimon File

Yet another battle between the tobacco industry and public health is underway in the General Assembly and a new report ought to make it easy for lawmakers to decide which side to support.

The House is now considering a proposal to allow counties to ban smoking in restaurants if the public approves it in a countywide vote. The plan expands a bill filed by Rep. Martha Alexander that originally applied only to Mecklenburg County.

The tobacco industry lobbyists are beside themselves and hotel and bar owners are complaining too. Tobacco built the state remember, then there is the mantra that government shouldn’t regulate the market, that it ought to be up to businesses to decide if they want to damage the public health even if the community votes for the protection.

The fundamental argument is that banning smoking will mean fewer customers and less money for hotels, bars, and restaurants. That’s what they said in Massachusetts too when the state imposed a statewide ban last July.

A study by the Harvard School of Public Health found that sales at bars and restaurants actually increased during the six months of the ban, even after adjusting for inflation. The Boston Globe reports that the state restaurant association now agrees that the smoking ban has had no negative affects on business.

The study also included tests on the air in 27 bars and restaurants before and after the ban and found that banning smoking reduced cancer-causing toxins by 93 percent. Quite a surprise there.

The debate in North Carolina is also about the longtime power of the tobacco industry. While industry lobbyists no longer call all the shots at the legislative building, they still have enormous influence over many lawmakers.

Many current legislators were in office in 1993 when the General Assembly bowed to the demands of the industry and passed a law prohibiting any local government from enacting anti-smoking laws stricter than a weak statewide standard.

Now legislators have another chance. The Harvard study shows that tobacco smoke poisons the air and smoking bans don’t hurt the local economy. Sounds like it might be time to let local communities control their own public health.

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This entry was posted on Monday, April 4th, 2005 at 6:17 pm and is filed under Fitzsimon File. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.