Smokers
take more hits
Indianapolis Star, December 31, 2006
... Nevada and Ohio voters approved statewide smoking restrictions), smoke-free air is the new status quo for most Americans," says Bronson Frick of Americans for ...
California
public colleges no longer will be able to censor their ...
Poynter.org - St. Petersburg,FL,USA, December 27, 2006
... Louisiana, smokers in 21 states will face a statewide smoking ban -- although Louisiana's ban excludes bars -- according to Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights. ...
City
may decide on smoking ban early next year
Huntsville (AL) Times, December 27, 2006
... and 39 percent of US citizens live in areas that are covered by statewide
or local laws limiting smoking, according to Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights.".
Ohio’s
ban on smoking doesn’t end the debate
Fort Wayne Journal Gazette - Fort Wayne,IN,USA, December 24, 2006
... On that day, the first 100-percent smoke-free law took effect in San Luis Obispo, Calif., according to Americans for Nonsmokers’ Rights, a non-profit group ...
Food
safety, consumer-driven health care on the agenda
MarketWatch - 12 hours ago
With 116 cities also enacting local smoke-free workplace laws, 2006 was a record
year, said Bronson Frick, associate director for the foundation. ...
The
ball drops here: new laws for '07
Stateline.org, DC - 12 hours ago
... smokers in 21 states will face a statewide smoking ban – although Louisiana’s
ban excludes bars – according to Americans for Nonsmokers’ Rights.
...
No
letup in California's anti-cigarette politics
Reuters, December 19, 2006
Jim Christie
California lawmakers will take up a bill that would add a $1.90 tax to each pack of cigarettes sold in the state, an effort that may gain political momentum if the new U.S. Congress puts the spotlight on health care, analysts said on Monday.
No
butts about it: You can’t smoke here
The Patriot Ledger - Quincy,MA,USA
NORWELL - When environmental cleanup contractor Clean Harbors moved its corporate headquarters from Braintree to Norwell in July, it made a clean break from tobacco-tolerant policies.
The company banned the use of tobacco products anywhere on its 16-acre property.
‘‘We had people huddled outside the entrances and exits of the building and everybody has to walk through a plume of smoke,’’ general counsel William Geary said. ‘‘And then there would be people out there on cold winter days without a jacket. The whole thing both for the smokers and non-smokers was sort of an unhealthy situation.’’
... to ban tobacco use on company property, but encourages them to phase in the ban and offer quit-smoking programs, executive director Cynthia Hallett said. ‘‘Cigarettes are very addictive, and it’s very difficult for a smoker to quit and deal with a smoke-free environment,’’ she said.
Tobacco
company funding legal challenge to smoking ban
Pittsburgh Post Gazette - Pittsburgh,PA,USA
Officials at tobacco giant R.J. Reynolds said yesterday the company is footing the bill for two Downtown restaurant owners to fight Allegheny County's smoking ban, set to take effect Jan. 2.
A representative said the company, based in Winston-Salem, N.C., also likely paid for phone banks the Pennsylvania Tavern Association set up to try to block the ban before County Council passed it 14-1.
For three weeks, phone bankers contacted constituents with liquor licenses and patched willing licensees directly into their council members' offices. The tavern association would not say who paid for the phone banks, but Reynolds said it funded similar efforts elsewhere.
"This is standard operating tobacco industry procedure," said Stanton A. Glantz, a professor at the University of California, San Francisco, who has been documenting tobacco control policy since 1978.
"The first city or county in a given state to pass a smoking ban gets sued. It's like clockwork. In the past, Philip Morris was more notorious, but Reynolds has been taking the lead lately," he said. . . .
Dozens of times tobacco firms have bankrolled campaigns around the country to block smoking bans or paid for lawsuits after the anti-smoking ordinances pass, said Bronson Frick, of Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights, in Berkeley, Calif.
Poll:
73 Percent of Tennesseans Support Smoke-Free Workplaces
MyFox Memphis - Memphis,TN,USA
Tennessee has banned smoking in buildings owned and operated by the state, and a survey released Tuesday shows many residents would like to prohibit the practice in all the state's workplaces...
According to Americans for Nonsmokers Rights, 18 states have smoke-free laws and lawmakers are considering similar policies in several other states.
Honolulu
Journal: The Aloha State Is Now Less Welcoming to Smokers
New York Times - United States
The Irish supergroup U2 was in town, some of the world’s best surfers were ripping waves off the North Shore and the Honolulu Marathon had pretty much every hotel room in Honolulu booked up. But at Captain Zack’s, a friendly dive bar here in the International Marketplace, the major topic for regulars this weekend involved ashtrays and alleyways.
In mid-November, Hawaii enacted one of the strictest antismoking laws in the country, outlawing smoking in bars, restaurants and most hotel rooms, as well as forbidding it within 20 feet of those establishments’ doorways, windows or ventilation intakes. For those at Captain Zack’s — which is partly open-air and sits on a small courtyard — that means smokers have to walk about 100 feet down a service alley, past garbage bins and into a street not even visible from the bar to have a smoke...
State health officials said the new law, which passed easily earlier this year, was following a national trend. According to the American Nonsmokers’ Rights Foundation, an antismoking group in Berkeley, Calif., more than 2,300 municipalities and nearly three dozen states have laws that limit where people can smoke.
McCarran
to clear the air
Las Vegas Sun, December 5, 2006
As operators of bars and other small slot machine venues consider challenging
last month's voter-approved smoking restrictions, one slot machine outlet isn't
waiting around for a second opinion. …
But Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights, a Berkeley, Calif.-based group that lobbies for smoking bans, says airports, like other public areas that have gone smoke-free in recent years, see the benefits of accommodating the majority of the public who don't smoke. Airports also are concerned about the health of their customers and workers, who aren't protected from smoke wafting from doorless smoking lounges and bars, said Bronson Frick, associate director of the group.
"A majority of people live in areas where smoke-free air is the status quo," he said.
More than 60 airports around the country, including those serving Los Angeles, Dallas and New York, are entirely smoke-free indoors as a result of a change in law or voluntary action.
Campus
News in Brief
CMU The Tartan Online - Pittsburgh,PA,USA
... there are only 29 colleges and universities nationwide that have entirely smoke-free campuses, according to the American Nonsmokers’ Rights Foundation. ...
Smoking
gets snuffed out
Posted 11/24/2006 7:40 AM ET
By Laura Bly, USA TODAY
Tropical breezes are getting a little fresher in Hawaii, Puerto Rico and the British Virgin Islands this winter. They're among a growing list of destinations launching smoking bans a trend fueled by this year's U.S. Surgeon General report confirming the dangers of secondhand smoke, and one that's extending to such smoker-friendly places as Nevada, France and Hong Kong.
"With the outcome of the November elections (in which Arizona, Nevada and Ohio voters approved statewide smoking restrictions), smoke-free air is the new status quo for most Americans and they expect to find that when they travel," says Bronson Frick of Americans for Non-smokers' Rights.
Smoking
laws in cities' hands
Tri-Valley Herald, CA - Nov 25, 2006
First it was Calabasas, then Dublin and now Belmont that have adopted or proposed
laws to sharply restrict the right to smoke, even in your own home. Emeryville
likely is next up.
Why are cities getting so feisty about smoking? …
... "Local policy changes are still the foundation of our movement," said Bronson Frick, associate director of Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights in Berkeley, one of ...
Smoking
limits on beach advance
Sun-Sentinel.com - Fort Lauderdale,FL,USA
... At least 54 local governments across the country prohibit smoking on beaches, according to the American Nonsmokers' Rights Foundation. ...
Smoking
Free Air Laws Not Eating Into Restaurants’ Profitability
Inside INdiana Business (press release) - Indianapolis,IN,USA
... According to Americans for Nonsmokers’ Rights, the nicotine levels
in New York City restaurant and bar workers decreased by 85 percent after the
city’s ...
Hospital
bans tobacco
The Register-Guard, Oregon - 45 minutes ago, November 14, 2006
... General reported in June that about 126 million Americans are regularly
... The American Nonsmokers Rights Foundations lists more than 400 hospitals
and clinics ...
Colleges
target outdoor smoking
DesMoinesRegister.com - Des Moines,IA,USA
The University of Iowa, Des Moines Area Community College and Drake University
are contemplating all-campus smoking bans, while Iowa State University is poised
to strengthen its outdoor smoking rules. They follow campuses nationwide that
have made their grounds smoke-free zones…
... Thirty-four campuses nationwide prohibit smoking both indoors and out, according
to the American Nonsmokers' Rights Foundation, a lobbying organization based
...
Proponents
postpone petition to ban smoking
Kansas City Business Journal, November 8, 2006
A petition drive aimed at forcing a vote on a Kansas City smoking ban was postponed Tuesday.
The drive, initiated by former Kansas City Councilman Jim Rowland, was to be a one-day blitz at the Kansas City polls, where Rowland thought collecting the necessary 2,323 signatures would be a slam dunk. ...
Overland Park, Independence and Lee's Summit will join 249 other U.S. cities with similar bans, according to the Americans For Nonsmokers' Rights Foundation.
Overland
Park passes business smoking ban
Belleville News-Democrat, November 7, 2006
OVERLAND PARK, Kan. - This Kansas City suburb became the largest city in Kansas to ban smoking in virtually all indoor businesses, even though it won't take effect for more than a year.
The City Council on Monday approved the ban, which will apply to all business except stand-alone retail tobacco shops.
The measure, which covers more than 300 restaurants and bars, takes effect
Jan. 2, 2008.
... The American Nonsmokers' Rights Foundation, based in Berkeley, Calif., said
Overland Park will join 249 other cities with similar bans. ...
Smokers
go back to ballot boxes in effort to light up again
USA Today - USA
By Emily Bazar, USA TODAY, November 2, 2006
A handful of communities from North Dakota to Pennsylvania are revisiting smoking bans and may provide more places to light up.
Voters in Mankato, Minn., and Appleton, Wis., will decide next week whether to repeal or weaken existing smoking bans.
... This year, 100 cities and counties "a record number" have enacted strong smoke-free ordinances, says Bronson Frick of the non-profit lobbying group ...
Crawford:
Puffing in ramps beats bar smoke
DesMoinesRegister.com - Des Moines,IA,USA
... 500 cities and 17 states have stomped out cigarettes in workplaces, including restaurants and/or bars, according to the American Nonsmokers Rights' Foundation. ...
Dept.
of Public Health: Tobacco Conference In Des Moines This Week
IowaPolitics.com (press Release) - Iowa,USA
... of Public Health on Building Grassroots Support for a Tobacco Tax Increase , and Annie Tegen, Program Manager, Americans for Nonsmokers’ Rights Foundation on ...
Clearing the air on smoke ban
Huntsville Times - Huntsville,AL,USA
... 39% of US citizens live in areas that are covered by statewide or local laws limiting smoking, according to Americans for Non-Smokers' Rights," McCollum said. ...
Smoking issues face Ohio voters Nov. 7
Marietta Times - Marietta,OH,USA, October 30, 2006
... The Americans for Non-smokers’ Rights reports that about 53,800 people
die every year from exposure to second-hand smoke. The ...
Food
Service Workers Severely Impacted by Secondhand Smoke
Inside INdiana Business (press release) - Indianapolis,IN,USA
When waiters and waitresses take jobs at restaurants that allow smoking, they are putting more than their livelihoods into jeopardy - they're putting their lungs and lives at risk as well.
According to recent statistics, their exposure to secondhand smoke is dramatically higher than the regular populace.
In fact, secondhand smoke levels in restaurants are approximately 160 to 200 percent higher than in-office workplaces, according to the organization, Americans for Non-Smokers' Rights (ANR). Levels in bars, which permit smoking, are 400-600 percent higher compared to the offices most of us work in.
Statewide
smoking ban debated
Chicago Tribune - United States
... proposal. Seventeen states already have strong statewide bans on smoking,
according to Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights. In Illinois ...
Smoking-ban
juggernaut gains steam in US
Houston Chronicle, October 18, 2006
... across the country have bans that prohibit smoking in workplaces, including
restaurants and bars, according to the American Nonsmokers' Rights Foundation.
...
Smoking
Bans Going Global
Consumer Affairs – USA, October 10, 2006
Though getting rid of passive tobacco smoke in public places is far from a done deal, travelers can find smoking bans on almost every continent.
Also in health-conscious California, communities are starting to consider bills that would ban smoking in outdoor public places such as parks and beaches...
That would please a Washington-based lobbying group called Action on Smoking and Health (ASH), now in its 38th year; the California-based Americans for Nonsmokers Rights (ANR); and Group Against Smoking Pollution (GASP). All have aggressively promoted enactment of anti-smoking legislation.
Supervisors
limit outdoor smoking
Contra Costa Times, October 11, 2006
No one in unincorporated areas of Contra Costa County will be able to smoke in neighborhood parks, on restaurant patios or along public trails after the Board of Supervisors unanimously passed outdoor smoking restrictions Tuesday that it hopes other cities in the region will copy...
Nearly 900 municipalities across the country restrict smoking in one or more types of outdoor areas such as restaurant patios, stadiums or beaches, according to the American Nonsmokers' Rights Foundation.
Study:
$6 billion lost to secondhand smoke
Insurance Networking News, October 5, 2006
... Using US Bureau of Economic Analysis data, the Americans for Nonsmokers Rights report that employees who smoke cost businesses in Marion County, Indiana ...
French
panel wants to end public smoking
Seattle Post Intelligencer, October 4, 2006
French lawmakers are trying to make France's smoky cafes a thing of the past. A parliamentary panel called Tuesday for a government ban on smoking in enclosed public areas within a year _ and floated the idea of "hermetically sealed" smoking rooms for those who want to light up...
474 municipalities have enacted smoking bans in restaurants, bars and other workplaces, according to the California-based Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights. ...
Poll:
Smoking ban has support
Myrtle Beach Sun News, SC, October 4, 2006
... states and hundreds of towns, cities and counties have passed no-smoking
laws, according to the California-based nonprofit Americans for Nonsmokers'
Rights. ...
Smoking
proposal to be discussed
The Huntsville Times, October 4, 2006
The Madison City Council will hold a work session today at 5:30 p.m. to discuss
a proposed Clean Air Ordinance that could make it tougher for residents to smoke
in public places…
McCollum said she also received a lone message from a person who felt that the City Council doesn't have the right to regulate smoking in privately-owned buildings. While conducting research on the topic, she said other cities and communities across the country that have enacted a Clean Air Ordinance vary in size.
"Many areas that do not have statewide bans still have bans on a city-by-city basis and 39 percent of U.S. citizens live in areas that are covered by statewide or local laws limiting smoking, according to Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights," she said.
One
year later, the smoking-ban debate still smolders
Great Falls Tribune - Great Falls,MT,USA, October 1, 2006
The Montana Clean Indoor Air Act took effect one year ago today. It bans indoor smoking in many places but not all.
Indoor puffing remains legal in some Montana bars, and the law doesn't cover
dwellings such as apartment buildings or some retirement centers. It gives most
businesses with liquor licenses until 2009 to comply with the prohibition.
... now. That's because it doesn't have to yet, said Bronson Frick, associate
director of Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights. "For now ...
Lights
Out for 'Light' Cigarettes
OneWorld US - Washington, DC, USA, October 1, 2006
... "It's time that we start holding them accountable for this fraud," Cynthia Hallet of California-based Americans for Nonsmokers Rights told OneWorld. ...
Allentown
sets example by urging public smoking ban
Allentown Morning Call - Allentown,PA,USA, September 28, 2006
On Sept. 20, Allentown City Council approved a resolution urging the state of Pennsylvania to enact a statewide ban on smoking in public places. This is a positive move for Allentown. We hope the state, and other cities across the commonwealth are paying attention.
... According to Americans for Non-smokers' Rights, a California-based lobbying organization, 17 states and 474 municipalities have enacted smoking bans in ...
Some cities
pondering outdoor smoking bans
San Bernardino Sun, September 27, 2006
People are huffing and puffing over anti-smoking laws as a movement to ban outdoor
smoking wafts across the country. More than 700 cities across the country have
enacted ordinances that limit outdoor smoking, according to the American Nonsmokers'
Rights Foundation.
Florida
beaches considering smoking bans
By Will Vash
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Monday, September 25, 2006
BOYNTON BEACH Standing strapped to a boogie-board as his children surfed atop the waves of the Pacific Ocean, Cocoa Beach Mayor Skip Beeler kept looking down at the cool California Summer sand sifting slowly between his toes…
Bronson Frick, an associate director at Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights in Berkeley, Calif., said there haven't been many reported violations since California's beaches went sans cigarette.
"It's been surprisingly smooth," Frick said. "We haven't heard any problems in fact."
Delray
mayor pushes to ban smoking along parts of beach
By Erika Slife
South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Posted September 22 2006
DELRAY BEACH -- Frustrated that smokers are using the entire beach as a giant
ashtray, Mayor Jeff Perlman would like to divide the sands into smoking and
nonsmoking sections. …
Cigarettes are the No. 1 littered items in the country, accounting for up to
35 percent of picked-up trash, according to Keep America Beautiful, the nation's
largest nonprofit community improvement organization. As a result, cities in
coastal states around the country are considering smoking bans or restrictions
on their beaches, with California governments leading the way, said Bronson
Frick, associate director of Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights.
"The smoke-free beach movement is fueled less by secondhand smoke, but more by the concern over litter, protecting kids and the environment," Frick said.
Delray
eyes beach smoking ban
By Dianna Smith
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Thursday, September 21, 2006
DELRAY BEACH The rain had just disappeared Wednesday, leaving calm waters, damp sand and a peaceful afternoon for beachgoer Jennifer Hanley. Sprawled on a beach towel with sunscreen nearby, the redhead soaked in the sun, adjusted her sunglasses and opened her crumpled pack of Parliaments...
Smokers are known to litter beaches with cigarette butts, which is why most smoke-free beach movements center on litter, said Bronson Frick, an associate director for Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights, a national group based in Berkeley, Calif.
The group keeps track of most smoking bans in the United States. Its list of smoke-free beaches or lakes includes 49 cities, with many in California, Minnesota and New Jersey. No Florida cities are listed.
Murrieta Bans Smoking In Some Public Places
(CBS) MURRIETA, Calif. Murrieta is joining a growing list of California cities that ban smokers from lighting up in some public places. ...
Murrieta is one of almost 2,300 municipalities nationwide that restrict smoking
in some form, according to the Americans for Non-smokers' Rights, a Berkeley-based
nonprofit.
About 45 percent of Americans now live in places with state or local laws limiting smoking, the group said.
Burning
questions: What would local smoking ban do to smokers, club-hoppers?
By K.O. Jackson
The Journal Gazette, September 19, 2006
After a long day, Darnell Brown sat in Lombard’s Bar at the downtown Hilton
Hotel and sipped a beverage.
In Fort Wayne on business, and while waiting for a friend to join him at the bar, the Ohioan complemented his drink with a Newport cigarette.
“I am relaxing,” he says.
However, Allen County commissioners recently introduced regulations that, if passed, would result in the county having one of the strictest smoking bans in the state….
Enjoyment or not, Bronson Frick thinks it’s time Indiana, not just Allen County, passes stricter smoking laws.
“We are for a smoke-free society,” says Frick, a Nashville (Ind.) native and associate director of the California-based Americans for Non-Smokers’ Rights.
Frick’s organization is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year. The group began with a smoking ban in a Berkley, Calif., grocery store in 1976.
“I would say more than 50 percent of the country is behind smoking bans,” Frick added in a telephone interview. “Indiana is behind the curve, but banning smoking is definitely the trend in America. A non-smoking workforce means a healthy workforce and community.”
Volunteer
honored by CTFA
Baxter (AR) Bulletin, September 19, 2006
A Tobacco-Free Marion County volunteer was honored at the Coalition for a Tobacco Free Arkansas state conference in Little Rock last week….
Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights' Associate Director Bronson Frick has called Few's media efforts "the best local media in the country with a rural community focus."
Tobacco
control advocates gather
Baxter Bulletin, September 19, 2006
More than 200 public health advocates attended the Fourth Annual Striking Out Tobacco in Arkansas Conference at the Holiday Inn-Select in Little Rock Sept. 14…
Frieda Glantz, project manager for the Americans for Nonsmoker's Rights, conducted a workshop on mobilizing grassroots efforts.
Philadelphia
becomes latest US city to ban smoking in most public ...
USA Today – September 14, 2006
PHILADELPHIA (AP) Philadelphia on Thursday became the latest U.S. city
to ban smoking in most public places, making it harder than ever for smokers
to light up.
Mayor John Street signed a bill that would ban smoking in all restaurants and
many bars, said his spokesman, Joe Grace. Sidewalk cafes, specialty tobacco
establishments, private clubs and casinos are exempt.
... According to California-based Americans for Non-smokers' Rights, 17 states
and 474 municipalities have enacted smoking bans in restaurants, bars and other
…
Lawmaker
wants to ban smoking at South Carolina schools
AP, 2006-09-05
JEFFREY COLLINS Associated Press Writer
Now the same lawmaker who helped get smoking banned from the Statehouse is trying to prohibit smoking on all public school property not only when classes are in session but also at after-school events like football games.
"With the recent data on secondhand smoke, now is the time to do this," said Sen. Darrell Jackson, D-Hopkins. "I hope that future generations can grow up avoiding this unhealthy habit."
For years, South Carolina has had some of the least restrictive rules banning smoking in public, along with states like North Carolina, Tennessee and Nevada, according to Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights, a California group that fights for public smoking bans.
Thirty-five other states have bans on smoking at public schools, said Cynthia
Hallett, executive director for Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights, which has
been pushing for public smoking bans for 30 years.
Hallett isn't surprised to see smoking bans making headway even in a place like
South Carolina. She said a recent Surgeon General's report that any level of
secondhand smoke is harmful has spurred lawmakers across the country into action.
Public smoking bans also are critical in reducing the number of smokers. "When these bans pass, people tend to stop smoking," Hallett said.
Businesses
across America cash in on smoking bans
By Russ Bynum
Associated Press
DUBLIN, Ga. — A year after Georgia forced restaurants to extinguish their smoking sections, the sign outside Chuck and Kay Fordham’s diner defiantly invites customers to “Bring Your Butts On In.”
Inside, ceiling fans stir the smell of frying bacon and hashbrowns with clouds of blue cigarette smoke as patrons puff away over cups of coffee. Butts pile up in ashtrays scattered on the tables and lunch counter.
Folks who don’t want a side order of secondhand smoke with their eggs and burgers should probably stay away from the Smoker’s Cafe.
….According to California-based Americans for Nonsmokers’ Rights, 17 states and 474 municipalities have enacted smoking bans in restaurants, bars and other workplaces.
Hawaii passed a ban that goes into effect in November, and Washington, D.C., will go smoke-free in January.
“Just as people violate speed limits, there will be individual businesses who will try to circumvent the smoke-free laws,” said Bronson Frick, associate director for the nonsmokers’ group. “But over time we see compliance go higher.”
Smoking on campus may breathe its last (SC)
By Scott Harper, sharper@gtowntimes.com September 08, 2006
For years, South Carolina has had some of the least restrictive rules banning smoking in public, along with states like North Carolina, Tennessee and Nevada, according to Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights, a California group that fights for public smoking bans.
Proposed
smoking ban moves forward
Wednesday, August 30, 2006
By THOMAS R. TINGLE
For the Madison Spirit thomas67@knology.net / Huntsville Times
City Council reviews clean air law, plans for public feedback
Madison residents could soon find it tougher to light up a cigarette in public places.
… "Many areas that do not have statewide bans still have bans on a city-by-city basis. On Dec. 28, 2005, USA Today reported that six states enacted indoor smoking bans in 2005, more than in any previous year, as public sentiment appears increasingly anti-tobacco," she said. "The same news article stated that 39 percent of U.S. citizens live in areas that are covered by statewide or local laws limiting smoking, according to Americans for Non-smokers' Rights."
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 3, 2006
For more info, contact: Jim Bergman 734 665-1126
"The landmark announcement today by First Centrum Communities that they are adopting a smoke-free policy for all 49 of their apartment communities in 6 states – MI, VA, MD, NC, TN & IL – is a giant step by a leader in the affordable housing field. No other major, national apartment development and management company has done this before. We applaud First Centrum for being a leader in adopting a policy to protect their residents from the health dangers of secondhand smoke and from the fire hazards caused by cigarettes," said Jim Bergman, the director of the Smoke-Free Environments Law Project (SFELP) of The Center for Social Gerontology, Inc., (TCSG), in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
First Centrum Communities announced that, effective September 1, 2006, all new residents in any of their 49 apartment communities will sign leases which state that they and their guests will not smoke anywhere inside the apartment building, including in their apartment, or anywhere on the grounds. First Centrum Communities manages 5,452 apartment units in 6 states; MI has 15 buildings, VA has 16, MD has 10, while NC has 6 and TN and IL have 1 each. In 2005, First Centrum was among the 35 largest Senior Housing Managers in the nation, according to American Seniors Housing Association. For specific cities and buildings go to http://www.firstcentrumcommunities.com although not all the sites are currently on the web site. (The First Centrum press release is included below.)
Nonsmoking
trend taking hold in N.C.
RALEIGH North Carolina’s No. 1 crop, which has made the state among
the nation’s most smoker-friendly, has seen new setbacks in each of the
past two legislative sessions, and some say the trend will continue…
The American Nonsmokers’ Rights Foundation estimates 29.8 percent of the nation’s population is protected by 100 percent smoking bans at work. The California-based advocacy group reported last month that 11 states ban all workplace smoking, including a few states with bans at restaurants, bars and other private employers.
Every year, the group reports, states or municipalities expand places where smoking is not allowed.
Health
advocates slam court ruling against Big Tobacco
Posted: 18 August 2006 1207 hrs
Channel NewsAsia
WASHINGTON : US health advocacy groups welcomed a federal court ruling Thursday
that found the tobacco industry lied about the harmful effects of smoking, but
said the penalties were far too weak…
That sentiment was echoed by its partner in the complaint, a Berkeley, California-based
national advocacy group for smoke-free environments.
"We are disappointed that many of the proposed remedies were not imposed by the judge," Bronson Frick, associate director of Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights, told AFP in a phone interview.
"We're going to ask the Bush administration to appeal the remedies in order to protect the American public, and particularly our children," Frick said.
American
Lung Association Applauds Decision Finding Tobacco Companies Guilty of Civil
Racketeering
8/17/2006 7:05:00 PM
"The American Lung Association commends U.S. District Court Judge Gladys
Kessler for ruling today in the interest of the public health. After reviewing
hundreds of thousands of pages of evidence and expert testimony, Judge Kessler
reached the correct conclusion: Tobacco companies have engaged in a decades-long,
fraudulent scheme to deceive the American public about the health risks of smoking
and exposure to secondhand smoke, the addictiveness of their products, and their
tactics for marketing their deadly products. …
"While we must review Judge Kessler's opinion thoroughly, we are disappointed that she felt limited by the appellate court's ruling in the remedies that she could impose. We urge the U.S. Department of Justice to appeal the remedies portion of this case so that future generations of Americans will be spared from the deadly consequences of smoking.
"On July 22, 2005, Judge Kessler granted the American Lung Association, along with the American Cancer Society, American Heart Association, Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights, the National African American Tobacco Prevention Network and the Tobacco-Free Kids Action Fund (a 501(c)4 affiliate of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids) permission to intervene in the case making these organizations formal parties to the lawsuit and granting them similar opportunities as the government and the tobacco company defendants to present arguments to the court."
Letters:
Smoke-free venues attract conventions
Amarillo.net, August 17, 2006
Recently several medical and public health organizations stated they are selecting
only cities, counties or states with smoke-free ordinances for their annual
conventions and meetings.
In the past, I have attended presentations of Bronson Frick, associate director for Americans for Non-smokers' Rights, and he recently mentioned that at least 11 groups, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Office on Smoking and Health, have made such pledges for their conventions. Revenue generated by these events greatly enhance the economy of the cities chosen
Dublin
introduces ordinance to curb second-hand smoke
By Sophia Kazmi
CONTRA COSTA TIMES
DUBLIN - Dublin has become the first city in the Bay Area to declare second-hand
smoke a public nuisance -- if that smoke finds its way into homes or back yards
where it isn't welcome.
...
Some Marin County communities have considered such anti-smoke declarations, according to the group Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights.
Calabasas, in Southern California, adopted a similar ordinance in March, and a number of cities around the country are considering following suit. More California cities will likely do so, especially given that earlier this year the state Air Resources Board called secondhand cigarette smoke a toxic air pollutant, according to Bronson Frick, associate director of Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights. The Surgeon General's report released June 27 concluded that there is no safe level of exposure to secondhand smoke.
Monday
morning: Surf's up, smoking isn't in San Diego
By M.S. Enkoji -- Sacramento Bee Staff Writer
Published 12:01 am PDT Monday, July 31, 2006
It's hard out there for a smoker.
And it just got a little harder in the seaside city of San Diego, where the City Council recently voted to ban smoking at public parks and beaches.
In a state where 14 percent of adults light up -- eight points lower than the national average -- the appeal of smoking bans is rapidly expanding from enclosed spaces to the great outdoors, said Debra Kelley, vice president of government relations for the San Diego office of the American Lung Association of California…
"The trend is moving forward," said Cynthia Hallett, executive director of the Berkeley-based American Nonsmokers' Rights Foundation. "We're going to see many more of these passed because public support is increasing."
A
new leaf: Farmers growing more tobacco for chewing as smokers quit
Cincinnati Post, July 28, 2006
… Bronson Frick, associate director of Americans for Non-Smokers Rights,
said part of the decrease in smoking - and increase in chewing - has to do with
public smoking bans. More than three dozen communities and states have already
passed anti-smoking laws, he said.
"There's a huge mountain of evidence about the dangers of second-hand smoke," Frick said. "The public has greater awareness of those health risks and lawmakers are responding to the concerns of constituents. What we're seeing with the smokeless tobacco is an industry that is determined to keep its customer addicted to nicotine in any form."
Michigan Talk Network (MP3 Format)
Radio Interview in Michigan, July 25, 2006
Groups
meeting in smoke-free cities
Updated 7/24/2006 11:31 AM ET
By Liz Szabo, USA TODAY
The National Cancer Institute has become the latest of a small but growing number of health organizations pledging to hold meetings only in cities, counties or states with "smoke-free air" laws.
"If we are really concerned about protecting the public, then we have a responsibility to adopt a policy like this," says Bob Vollinger, program director of the tobacco control research branch at the institute, which announced the decision this month.
The announcement comes at a time of increasing concern about secondhand smoke. The U.S. surgeon general released a report in June concluding that secondhand smoke, which is thought to kill nearly 50,000 Americans a year, is dangerous at any level and that only smoking bans can protect non-smokers…
But Vollinger notes that finding smoke-free cities is getting easier. Fourteen states meet the NCI's standard for smoke-free air, which takes effect Jan. 1, he says. And nearly 2,300 municipalities have passed smoke-free laws, says Americans for Non-smokers' Rights.
2nd-hand
smoke dangers vs. business freedom
Lexington (NE) Clipper Herald, 2006-07-22
Author: Barb Batie Bierman
(Editor's note: This is the third story in a three-part series on Lexington's discussions regarding placing a smoking prohibition ordinance on the November gerneral election ballot)
LEXINGTON - As Lexington residents begin to ponder a proposed no smoking ordinance the issue of business freedom versus the dangers of second-hand smoke is being raised.
Greg Meyer, who owns and operates the Klipper Barbershop, notes he is opposed to the proposed ban and thinks if it is put into effect it will have a negative impact on his business. A sign in his front window notes, "Freedom of Speech. You don't own my business so don't tell me that I can't smoke in my own business." . . .
The number of municipalities with local 100 percent smoke-free laws is on the rise. In 1990, the first year the American Nonsmokers' Rights Foundation (ANRF) kept records, there were four municipalities with ordinances, two prohibited smoking in workplaces and one each prohibited smoking in restaurants and bars.
By this year that number had increased to 351 communities with workplace smoking bans, 292 with restaurant smoking bans and 215 with smoking bans for bars, and the number continues to rise as more ordinances go into effect, reports ANRF.
All
Marriott hotels clearing the air: 2,300 facilities in the U.S. and Canada are
to be nonsmoking starting in September
By Lorraine Mirabella
Baltimore Sun
Posted July 20 2006
They've tried scrubbing the walls, deodorizing the drapes and using high-powered
air cleaners and ozone treatment machines. But, the executives at Bethesda-based
Marriott International Inc. say, nothing can truly eliminate the telltale odor
of tobacco smoke in a hotel room…
Some hotel guests and anti-smoking advocates applauded Marriott's move, coming
at a time when 17 states have passed laws that require smoke-free workplaces
or restaurants or bars, or a combination of the three. Delaware, Massachusetts,
New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island and Washington state have barred smoking
in all three, according to Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights.
"Businesses are beginning to take note and work to accommodate the fact that the vast majority of people are nonsmokers and are looking for smoke-free establishments for their accommodations," said Cynthia Hallett, executive director of the nonprofit lobbying organization in Berkeley, Calif.
Going Smokeless? State Forbids Municipalities From Weighing In On Issue
By: Nathan Johnson
nathan.johnson@yankton.net
Press & Dakotan, July 20, 2006
Nationwide, there are 140 municipalities that do not allow smoking in workplaces, restaurants or bars.
However, in South Dakota municipalities and other local government entities are not able to weigh in on where smoking is acceptable. Like several other states -- including Nevada, Oklahoma, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee -- South Dakota has a preemption law that makes the state Legislature the "exclusive regulator of all matters relating to the use of tobacco products." Currently, the state bans smoking in all workplaces, excluding bars, restaurants and casinos.
According to Bronson Frick, assistant director of the American Nonsmokers' Rights Foundation in Berkeley, Calif., preemption laws were introduced around the nation in the 1990s at the urging of tobacco lobbyists.
"The tobacco companies would prefer to fight one fight at the statehouse, where they're most powerful, than fight a hundred brushfires around the state," he said. "South Dakota, because of its pre-emption law, is unfortunately behind the curve in a lot of ways. Communities have not had the right to local control, the right to debate the issue locally and to have laws that are right for them."
Dueling ballot measures vie for spots on November ballot
BY MICHAEL HAYS
Wednesday, July 19, 2006 11:21 PM MDT
News-Herald (AZ)
Next year, residents and visitors may not be able to complement their cold beer with a cigarette, should a smoking ban pass in November…
According to Americans for Non-Smokers' Rights, a lobbying group, RJ Reynolds paid up to $4 per signature to signature gatherers during successful efforts to put the competing initiative on the November ballot. RJ Reynolds, maker of Camel and Kool brands of cigarettes, and the Arizona Licensed Beverage Association, are the major backers behind the Arizona Non-Smoker Protection Act.
San
Diego bans smoking at beaches, parks
By THOMAS WATKINS, Associated Press Writer
Yahoo! News, July 13, 2006
Worried about the health effects of secondhand smoke and sick of cleaning up discarded cigarettes, San Diego has banned smoking at its beaches and parks. The city joins nearly 2,300 other municipalities across the nation that have barred smoking in a variety of public places….
According to the American Nonsmokers' Rights Foundation, 17 states now have laws in effect to regulate smoking in public places. That means 44.5 percent of the U.S. population is restricted from puffing at bars, restaurants and other locations.
Smoking
bans may have no borders
USA Today, 2006-07-13
John Ritter, USA TODAY
The World Health Organization plans to urge smoking bans worldwide based on a landmark California study that was the first to add breast cancer to a list of diseases caused by secondhand tobacco smoke.
The WHO will announce today at the 13th World Conference on Tobacco or Health in Washington that the study by California's Environmental Protection Agency (CalEPA) will be the scientific basis for recommendations due in September.
Report
may help bans on smoking: Activists will push bill for workplaces
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS / Winston salem journal
A recent report on the dangers of secondhand smoke could bolster anti-smoking
efforts, especially at work sites, health and government officials say…
North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Nevada have been among the least
restrictive states in prohibiting people from smoking in certain public places,
said Bronson Frick, the associate director of the advocacy group Americans for
Nonsmokers' Rights.
EMH
facilities set to go smoke-free in 2007
Chronicle, July 11, 2006
The no-smoking sign will be turned on at EMH Regional Medical Center next year, and even smokers who step outside won’t be allowed to light up...
Nationally, 38 states have smoke-free hospitals and clinics. Ohio has 35 such facilities, according to the American Nonsmokers’ Rights Foundation.
Foes
of public smoking seek big changes in tobacco-friendly N.C.
CHARLOTTE, N.C.
The Associated Press, July 9, 2006
A recent report on the dangers of secondhand smoke could bolster anti-smoking efforts, especially at work sites, say health and government officials….
North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Nevada have been among the least restrictive states when it comes to prohibiting people from lighting up in certain public places, says Bronson Frick, associate director of Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights, a California-based advocacy group.
Even
Carolinas pushing to snuff public smoking: New health warning fuels efforts
to clear air in workplaces, eateries
GREG LACOUR
Charlotte Observer, July 9, 2006
Officials in the Carolinas, traditionally two of the nation's most smoker-friendly
states, hope a new U.S. surgeon general's report on the dangers of secondhand
smoke can boost their efforts to stub out smoking…
Several states didn't wait for the surgeon general's confirmation. They've adopted laws prohibiting smoking in workplaces, restaurants and bars, which tended to be the only public places where people could still smoke indoors.
The Carolinas, though, rank with Tennessee, Virginia, and Nevada -- a state that allowed smoking in day-care centers until recently -- as some of the least restrictive states, said Bronson Frick, associate director of Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights, a California-based advocacy group.
Lexington
to join smoking ban discussions
Lexington (NE) Clipper-Herald, July 8, 2006
From Calabasas, Calif., to Gainesville, Ga., and even in the nation's Capitol,
hundreds of towns, cities and communities across the country are enacting smoking
bans…
Council member Linda Miller has been researching the issue for the council.
She notes statistics from the American Nonsmoker's Rights Foundation show 17
states now have no-smoking laws in effect, as do 461 towns, cities and counties
elsewhere.
Fields
going smoke-free
North Jersey.com, July 8, 2006
The borough is set to become the fourth Passaic County municipality to enact
an outdoor smoking ban in borough-owned recreational areas -- and yet another
town that's fast-making New Jersey known nationwide for its progressive smoke-free
laws….
The number of towns nationwide that have enacted such outdoor smoking bans is
only in the hundreds, which makes New Jersey a pioneer on the issue, said Bronson
Frick, associate director of California-based lobbying organization Americans
for Nonsmokers' Rights.
"New Jersey is definitely a leader in the country on these outdoor protections. Other states have looked to New Jersey as a resource," Frick said.
Smokers
appear to be a greater danger to communities than junkies
DeWayne Wickham, July 4, 2006
Gannett News Service
Using cocaine and heroin is a serious crime in this country. Smoking cigarettes
in public places is not. But if the U.S. Surgeon General's recent report on
the effects of cigarette smoking is right, Americans have more to fear from
smokers than from junkies.
Exposure to secondhand smoke dramatically increases the chance of developing
heart disease and lung cancer, Surgeon General Richard Carmona said a few days
ago.
"There is no safe level of exposure to secondhand smoke," Carmona
said in releasing a new report. "Breathing secondhand smoke for even a
short time can damage cells and set the cancer process in motion."…
While scientists and doctors have warned us many times about the harm done by secondhand smoke, states have been slow to respond. Only 11 of the 50 states have enacted laws banning smoking in all workplaces. Fifteen states have outlawed smoking in restaurants, and 11 have banned it in bars, according to the American Nonsmokers' Rights Foundation.
Smoking
ban urged in Hilton Head
Councilman seeks to prohibit it at bars, restaurants and workplaces
The Associated Press, July 3, 2006
A Town Council member wants Hilton Head Island to ban smoking at bars, restaurants
and workplaces…
About 470 municipalities and 18 states ban indoor smoking, according to the
American Nonsmokers Rights Foundation. In Georgia, smokers younger than 18 can't
light up in public places. Louisiana became one of the few states in the South
to ban smoking in restaurants and other public buildings.
Cynthia Hallett, executive director of Americans for Nonsmokers Rights, said
the South has been slow to enact smoking bans largely because of the region's
long tobacco history.
Tobacco has long been one of South Carolina's top cash crops. But, she said,
if small towns start passing bans, it could spread to larger cities and even
the state level.
Smoke
free or free to smoke?
Anderson Herald Bulletin, IN - Jul 1, 2006
"For Richard Bruson, smoking is "like breathing." Bruson, a 79-year-old
retired Remy International line worker, has been a smoker since he snuck puffs
as a 13-year-old.
But he sees both sides to a smoking ban in city businesses…
At last count, 23 Indiana communities had full or partial smoking bans, making it the state with the third-highest number of 100-percent smoke-free ordinances, according to Americans for Nonsmokers Rights.
Redwood
Memorial Hospital creates 100 percent smoke-free grounds
by Carol Harrison, 7/2/2006
It's Independence Day for staff, visitors and patients at Redwood Memorial Hospital.
Beginning Tuesday, the Fortuna facility and its grounds will be free of the
secondhand smoke that the surgeon general called a "serious health hazard"
in a report released June 27….
The American Nonsmokers' Rights Foundation has been advocating smoke-free air
since 1976. According to its July 1 Web site posting, Redwood Memorial Hospital
joins the Kaiser Permanente hospitals, City of Hope National Medical Center,
Riverside Community Hospital and Mission Hospital as the only California facilities
to prohibit smoking on their grounds.
Smokeless
in Colorado
By MELISSA TRUJILLO
Associated Press writer Sunday, July 02, 2006
Some business owners worry that smokers will abandon their local watering holes
when Colorado becomes the 13th state in the nation to ban smoking in bars, restaurants
and workplaces. Others see an opportunity to attract nonsmokers with fresh air.
Still others worry they won't have enough patience or money to adapt...
"It's very clear that smoke-free air is good for health and good for business,"
said Bronson Frick, associate director of Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights.
Colo.
businesses worry about survival after smoking ban
Associated Press, June 30, 2006
Summit Daily News
John Hoekstra understands the anxiety that many Colorado restaurant and bar owners are feeling as they wait for a statewide smoking ban to start Saturday ...
"It's very clear that smoke-free air is good for health and good for business," said Bronson Frick, associate director of Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights.
Smoking
targeted by tenant suit: Man says daughter's health suffered
BY BRAD A. GREENBERG, Staff Writer
Los Angeles Daily News
California has long been a pioneer in the fight against public smoking.
Restaurants kicked the habit in 1995. Few Los Angeles County beaches still allow sunbathers to light up. And, despite its Old West airs, Calabasas snuffed out smoking in all public places in March.
Now, in what is believed to be another first, a Woodland Hills attorney is
suing the owners of his apartment complex for allowing tenants to smoke by the
pool, the barbecues, the playground - in any common area of the 20-acre property
- because the secondhand smoke has allegedly harmed his 5-year-old daughter.
…
Officials at the American Cancer Society and Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights were unaware of similar lawsuits having ever been filed, though some landlords have made the decision to ban smoking on their properties.
Greene
County working toward becoming smoke free
By Nick Schneider, ASSIGNMENTS EDITOR
Daily World, June 30, 2006
Greene County is making progress in the establishment of smoke-free eating establishments at a time when the United States Surgeon General concludes there is no risk-free level of exposure to second-hand smoke …
Currently, 23 Indiana municipalities have adopted smoke free ordinances. Of those, 15 meet the criteria known to be effective in eliminating health hazards from secondhand smoke as established in the Surgeon General's report. All told, more than one-third of the Hoosier population is protected by such laws; compared to just 3 percent in 2000. In the wake of these achievements, Indiana recently received an award from the Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights (ANR) for the state having the third most 100 percent smoke-free ordinances (in the U.S.) adopted in 2005.
Smoking
ban divides crowd at LS hearing
By Andre Riley
The Examiner
Faced with a deadline to take action on a proposed ban of workplace smoking, Lee's Summit is seeking compromise...
The Vote Yes for Clean Air Committee ordinance was based on a model from the Mid-America Regional Council and Americans for Nonsmokers Rights.
Indiana's
Smoke Free Ordinances Recognized Nationally
InsideINdianaBusiness.com Report, 6/28/2006
Indiana has received an award from the Americans for Nonsmokers’ Rights
for the state having the nation's third most 100 percent smoke-free ordinances
adopted in 2005.
Twenty-three Indiana municipalities have adopted smoke free ordinances and more worksites are implementing smoke free air policies. The Indiana State Fair just announced it will expand its smoke free policy to include the Pfizer Fun Park at this year’s fair.
Study:
No safe level of secondhand smoke
Surgeon general warns against any exposure
Chicago Tribune, By Miriah Meyer and Jeremy Manier
June 28, 2006
No amount of air filtration can eliminate the health hazards of secondhand smoke,
according to a new U.S. surgeon general's report that could challenge a controversial
loophole in Chicago's impending ban on smoking in public places…
According to the American Nonsmokers' Rights Foundation, 2,282 municipalities have laws that restrict where smoking is permitted. Of those, 219 require restaurants and bars to be smoke-free. Chicago suburbs with such comprehensive laws include Bedford Park, Deerfield, Evanston, Highland Park, Hinsdale and Wilmette.
Secondhand
smoke's broad health effects: Surgeon general calls for more protection in indoor
spaces
Market Watch, June 27, 2006
Exposure to any level of secondhand smoke is not safe, especially for children,
and the only way to fully prevent it is to eliminate smoking indoors, according
to a new report from the U.S. surgeon general….
Eleven states and many municipalities currently ban smoking in workplaces, while
15 states prohibit puffing in restaurants, according to the American Nonsmokers'
Rights Foundation in Berkeley, Calif.
Another 11 -- California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Massachusetts,
New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington -- require bars of
any size to be smoke-free, the foundation said.
Report:
No amount of smoke is safe
Surgeon general: Separate areas aren't good enough
12:00 AM CDT on Wednesday, June 28, 2006
By KAREN ROBINSON-JACOBS / The Dallas Morning News
The U.S. surgeon general handed advocates of smoke-free public places new ammunition
Tuesday – a report declaring that separate smoking sections don't protect
bystanders from the hazards posed by other people's tobacco smoke.
…
The Web site of the American Nonsmokers' Rights Foundation lists 15 states where restaurants are required to be smoke-free and 11 states where smoking is banned in all workplaces.
Surgeon
General's Report on Second Hand Smoke; A Snapshot of Current Smoking Bans Nationally
From The Foundation for a Smokefree America
R.J. Reynolds' grandson: 'Banning smoking is an idea whose time has come'
PR Newswire, 2006-06-27
Patrick Reynolds, Smokefree America's founder and Executive Director, said today, "Banning smoking is an idea whose time has come. 44.5% of the U.S. population now live with smokefree workplaces, restaurants, or bars. There's a fast rising tide of smoking bans being passed around the nation." He also cites the fact above.
Smoking
to be banned in W.Va. prisons June 27, 2006
Herald-Dispatch, June 27, 2006
BECKLEY, W.Va. (AP) Smoking in West Virginia’s 16 prisons and 11 juvenile facilities is being snuffed out as part of an effort to provide a healthier environment for inmates...
The ban follows a nationwide trend to prohibit all tobacco products in correctional facilities. Federal prisons are smoke free and 38 other states have adopted smoke free or partial smoke free protection policies, according to the American Nonsmokers’ Rights Foundation.
QMG campus
going smoke free
The Quincy Herald-Whig
Quincy Medical Group will become a smoke-free campus July 5. While the clinic
has been smoke free inside its facilities for many years, the new policy will
extend to all of its properties and adjacent parking lots and sidewalks…
In terms of health-care facilities, the Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights group
says that research has shown that smoke-free campuses:
* Aid in community, employee and patient cessation efforts;
* Lower maintenance costs; and
* Increase worker productivity.
Frick
'95 Will Attend Tuesday's Surgeon General Report
Wabash College Web Site
Berkeley, Calif. – It’s hard to pick up a newspaper anywhere in this
country without reading about a community debating a smoke-free ordinance.
One influential hand in that on-going societal change is Wabash College graduate,
Bronson Frick ’95. Frick is the Associate Director for Americans for Non-smokers
Rights based in Berkeley. His organization has provided grass root support and
training to groups trying to pass such ordinances.
Smoking
issue on front burner
BY ROGER DUPUIS II
STAFF WRITER
June 24, 2006
Smoking may not rank with abortion and gay marriage, but a state proposal to
ban puffing in workplaces and other public venues could prove just as divisive…
Research by the Berkeley, Calif.-based American Nonsmokers’ Rights Foundation
shows that cities which enacted bans typically found no negative impact on businesses.
“Many, in fact, show an increase in business,” said ANRF project manager
Frieda Glantz.
LCCP
Hosts Anti-Tobacco Summit
by Andrew Davis
2006-06-21
Sobering statistics and personal reflections were the order of the day at “Queer
the Air,” a day-long anti-tobacco summit that took place May 23 at Howard
Brown Health Center, 4025 N. Sheridan. The event was hosted by the Lesbian Community
Cancer Project ( LCCP ) .
Among the goals of the event was to have attendees learn about the national
LGBT anti-tobacco movement and to strategize how to spread the word. Another
aim was to create a coalition effort ( among local and national organizations
) to support smoke-free gay bars before the final implementation of Chicago’s
anti-smoking ordinance takes effect in 2008.
Others who talked included Frieda Glantz, project manager of Americans for Nonsmokers’
Rights; Antonio Cardona, program director of the Rainbow Health Initiative;
and Kitty Jerome, a program consultant with The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
Heartland
hotels ban smoking from all premises: The Waterloo-based company says it is
following a U.S. trend
By BONNIE HARRIS
REGISTER BUSINESS WRITER
Heartland Inns of America announced Wednesday that it will ban smoking from
all guest rooms and public areas at each of its 19 properties in Iowa and Wisconsin,
reflecting a trend in the hotel industry.
...
"It's pretty phenomenal that hotels are starting to advertise themselves rather proudly as being completely smoke-free," said Frieda Glantz, a project manager for Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights, a nonprofit group based in Berkeley, Calif. "They realize it's the right thing to do for the health of their employees but also for the health of their business."
Glantz said 16 states have a smoke-free law in place.
Hospitals
plan smoking ban
HEALTH CARE: Employees, patients and visitors will be affected as SMDC and St.
Luke's say they'll prohibit lighting up.
BY BRANDON STAHL
NEWS TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
...
Neither health-care system would be the first in Minnesota to implement a smoke-free policy on their campuses. Eleven providers, including the Mayo clinic, enforce similar policies, according to the American Non-Smokers' Rights Foundation.
Morehead
limits smoking; Frankfort puts ban on its agenda
Lexington (KY) Herald-Leader, 2006-06-14
On Monday night, Morehead decided to officially join the ranks of smoke-free Kentucky cities. Several counties west, Frankfort officials voted to begin the process.
At a council work session, the Frankfort city commission ordered a draft smoking ban ordinance to be considered at its June 26 meeting.
The topic has been hotly debated in Frankfort for the past several months, said City Manager Anthony Massey.
"We want a fairly comprehensive smoking ban, similar to what Lexington has in place," Massey said…
Bronson Frick, associate director of Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights, said smoking bans are definitely a becoming a trend across states with traditionally high tobacco use, such as Kentucky.
"Lexington is a leader, as it inspired many other communities to consider the issue," Frick said.
Petition
likely to ignite new smoking vote
Beaumont Enterprise, 6/13/06
Memo to bar owners: Don't throw away your ashtrays just yet.
City council soon may be reevaluating its 100 percent smoking ban, as opponents
of the ordinance have almost collected enough signatures on a petition to bring
it back for discussions…
Repealing no-smoking ordinances is not new. In fact it's expected, said Bronson
Frick, associate director of Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights in California.
"Around the country this is fairly typical," he said. "That is nothing new, that's actually the next phase in terms of the opposition. They will continue to try to roll back the law."
Nationwide, city voters tend to lean in favor of banning smoking in establishments. If Beaumont voters were to overturn the city council-imposed ordinance, it would be the first time in Texas, said Cam Scott, director of Texas field government relations for the American Cancer Society.
"So far there's not been a case where voters overturned the ordinance," he said. "It seems like the momentum is going that way and people are really beginning to understand they really do have the right to breathe clean air because it is really a matter of health."
A big factor in swaying voters is whether the smoking ban will be enacted during the two months before the election.
"Once a law is in effect and people get used to the smoke-free environments, they won't want to go back to the way it was," Frick said. "When the law goes into effect, people in Beaumont will realize that the sky didn't fall."
Businesses develop
anti-smoking solutions
KUAM
Restaurants are to comply with the non-smoking law, the Natasha Protection Act.
On Friday Court Judge Steven Unpingco dismissed Attorney General Douglas Moylan's
motion that questioned the constitutionality of the Act. Now, consider the opinions
of a few popular restaurateurs that have developed solutions for smokers and
non-smokers alike.
After a good meal or a few drinks, those who have a craving for nicotine usually end up lighting a cigarette. And according to the Americans for Non-Smokers' Rights, while the tobacco industry has claimed for years that smoke-free ordinances have a negative impact on business, particularly hospitality-oriented businesses, that simply is not true.
Strike
up the ban?
By Deborah L. Shelton
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
06/10/2006
In 1965, cigarette packs did not display warning labels.
As recently as 1976, the government supplied discounted cigarettes in K-rations and C-rations to troops.
And until 1990, you could still light up on a plane if the flight lasted longer
than two hours.
But have they changed enough?
Some public health advocates say many parts of the St. Louis region are behind the times when it comes to creating smoke-free environments.
As of May, 11 states were considered "smoke-free" because of universal smoking bans at workplaces and other public places such as bars and restaurants, according to the American Nonsmokers' Rights Foundation based in California.
Missouri and Illinois are not among them, although 122 ordinances have been passed in Missouri and 49 have been enacted in Illinois.
Missouri
lagging in smoke-free environments
Associated Press
ST. LOUIS - Public health advocates say Missouri and many parts of the St. Louis region don't have enough smoke-free environments.
Eleven states are considered "smoke-free" because of universal smoking bans, and Missouri is not one of them. The designation comes from the California-based American Nonsmokers' Rights Foundation, which tracks smoking bans at workplaces, bars and restaurants.
Tobacco
giants test smoke-free products
Posted 6/8/2006 10:43 PM ET
By Wendy Koch, USA TODAY
The nation's top cigarette companies for the first time are selling smokeless tobacco products as more cities and states pass smoke-free laws.
Some public health advocates warn that the products, to be sold in three cities as test markets, may stop smokers from quitting or entice kids and non-smokers….
The trend toward indoor smoking bans, designed to shield workers from secondhand smoke, is accelerating, says Bronson Frick of Americans for Non-smokers' Rights. Already this year, he says, 34 communities have enacted smoking bans, along with the District of Columbia and five states: Arkansas, Colorado, Hawaii, New Jersey and Utah. The laws don't cover smokeless tobacco.
Smoking
Question: Worries Over Ban Surface
7 June 2006
By Howard Stutz And Ed Vogel Las Vegas Gaming Wire
Casino Times
LAS VEGAS, Nevada -- Sitting at a Red Rock Resort video poker machine Tuesday afternoon, Deloss Daniels puffed away on his cigar while hoping to hit an elusive royal flush. …
Nevada now ranks as the worst state in the nation for protecting nonsmokers, said Bronson Frick, the organization's associate director. With passage of the ballot question, Nevada would be among the best states for nonsmokers rights, he said.
Dublin
says secondhand smoke is a public nuisance
By Sophia Kazmi
CONTRA COSTA TIMES
DUBLIN - Create secondhand smoke in Dublin and you might find yourself hauled into court.
Joining a handful of cities around the country, Dublin is making life tougher for smokers by creating an ordinance that declares tobacco smoke to be a public nuisance…
Some Marin County communities have considered such a declaration, said Bronson Frick, associate director of Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights.
Study
claims that smoking bans not harmful to sales
Sam Hedenberg and Heather Faison, The Examiner
Jun 7, 2006 7:00 AM (3 hrs ago)
Howard County - Some bar and restaurant owners fear a loss of business as Howard
County joins three other Maryland counties with a smoking ban.
But a 2002 study, the most recent report by the national nonprofit Americans for Nonsmokers’ Rights, states that “smoke-free laws generally had no statistically significant effect” when restaurant and bar sales were compared in areas with and without smoking bans.
House
committee tables smoking ban (PA)
BY MICHAEL RACE
HARRISBURG BUREAU CHIEF
HARRISBURG — A proposal to ban smoking in restaurants, bars and other public
places faces a cloudy future after a House committee on Tuesday failed to muster
enough votes to approve it.
Gov. Ed Rendell, meanwhile, lent his support to a statewide smoking ban and
said he was “disappointed” by the committee’s delay.
“I know a lot of the legislators here believe that (smoking bans) should be done on a local basis ... but I believe a statewide ban would be good, and I’d be willing to sign it,” the governor said.
His remarks came after the House Health and Human Services Committee spent
nearly an hour amending and debating a measure that would forbid smoking in
a variety of businesses, including bars and restaurants, malls, grocery stores,
sports arenas, convention halls and casinos. It also would extend to workplaces,
requiring employees to leave the premises before lighting up.
Several other states have similar bans. At least 14 states have smoke-free laws
for restaurants, 11 ban smoking in the workplace, and 10 have smoking bans that
extend to bars, according to the American Nonsmokers’ Rights Foundation.
Petitioners
target Beaumont's anti-smoking ordinance
By: Dee Dixon, The Beaumont (TX) Enterprise
05/25/2006
BEAUMONT - When comedian Slade Ham hits the stage, he banks on his audience feeling comfortable so they will be open to his jokes...
Other cities statewide with some sort of smoking ban include Victoria, New Braunfels, Round Rock, San Antonio, Leander, Robinson, Copperas Cove, Woodway, Harlingen, Corpus Christi, Dallas, El Paso, Alvin and Rollingwood, according to the American Nonsmokers' Rights Foundation Web site.
Smoke
wars return: Anchorage Assemblymen Coffey, Traini propose banning cigarettes
in almost all public spaces in the city
By KYLE HOPKINS
Anchorage Daily News, (Published: May 24, 2006)
Make a list of public places in Anchorage where smokers can still smoke: bars, bingo parlors, city parks.
It's legal to light a cigarette in all those places now, but a group of Anchorage Assembly members has launched a campaign to ban it from some of the last OK-to-smoke public spaces in the city. They're gearing up for what could be a fierce public squabble this summer.
Their proposal, introduced at Tuesday night's Assembly meeting, would expand the city's much-argued 2001 ban on smoking in restaurants, workplaces and other enclosed public spaces.
New
Ordinance Regulates Tobacco Sales in Hollister
Tuesday, May 23, 2006
By Luke Roney/Staff Writer
Hollister Free Lance
Hollister - The City Council passed new regulations last week requiring merchants
to get a city-issued license before they sell cigarettes, cigars and other tobacco
products.
...
With the passage of the ordinance, Hollister joined the nearly 50 jurisdictions in California, and more than 500 nationwide, that have tobacco retail licensing regulations, according to Berkeley-based American's Nonsmokers' Rights Foundation. Executive director Cynthia Hallet said that such ordinances give local government a record of who sells tobacco in the community. Also, she said, the licensing process ensures that retailers understand what the laws for selling tobacco are.
40
States Seek to Limit 'Little Cigar' Marketing: Treasury Asked to Clarify Definition
By Kathleen Day
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, May 19, 2006; Page D01
Forty states have asked the U.S. Treasury Department to bar tobacco companies from marketing products they say are identical to cigarettes as "little cigars," a designation the states say lets the firms evade taxes and target younger consumers. …
Representatives of four nonprofit groups -- the American Heart Association, Americans for Nonsmokers Rights, the American Lung Association and the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids -- disagreed. "Many of these 'little cigars' are blatantly aimed at our children," they said in a joint statement in support of the 40 states' filing. "They are cheaper and more affordable to kids than regular cigarettes because they have lower excise tax rates, and they are often sold individually rather than in packs because their classification exempts them from state laws setting minimum pack sizes for cigarettes."
Smoking
bans have way of spreading
Beaumont (TX) Enterprise, 2006-05-14
With the city of Beaumont recently passing an anti-smoking ordinance, other cities in the Golden Triangle could consider adopting similar ordinances.
And just as there is a potential ripple effect locally, there is a possibility that within a few years there could be a statewide smoking ban.
History played out that way in states that have prohibited smoking in public places.
For example, in California, considered one of the more progressive states, the first citywide smoking ban occurred in Lodi south of Sacramento in 1990. Within five years, more than 280 cities there had passed some sort of anti-smoking provision, said Colleen Stevens, California Tobacco Control Program specialist. . . .
"It is inevitable," Stevens said of the domino effect of smoking bans. "This is a law that works and is easy to implement, and it is beneficial to all of California. Our smokers like the law. Our business owners like the law. And customers like the law."…
Texas cities with some sort of smoking ban include Austin, Victoria, New Braunfels, Round Rock, San Antonio, Leander, Robinson, Copperas Cove, Woodway, Harlingen, Corpus Christi, Dallas, El Paso, Alvin and Rollingwood, according to the American Nonsmokers' Rights Foundation Web site. Beaumont recently approved a ban.
Tobacco
Industry Antics Spur Renewed Push for Regulation
by Megan Tady, May 12, 2006
New Standard
Despite the known health risks, the FDA cannot regulate cigarettes or other
tobacco products, a situation watchdogs find increasingly problematic as the
historically deceitful industry introduces new smokeless products.
Last year, it was alcohol- and candy-flavored cigarettes "Margarita Mixer," "Twista Lime," "Mocha Taboo" presented in party-promising packages. This year, it's smoke-free, spit-free tobacco products convenient enough to use in places where cigarettes are banned. The cigarette industry, it seems, is the master chameleon.
But as tobacco-product companies continue to reinvent themselves by creating
new brands and employing ever-more-cunning marketing strategies, public-health
groups argue that these new offerings underscore the need for legislation that
would rope in the industry. ...
The Surgeon General's Warning on packages also helps to push the misconception.
"The warning label may give the illusion that someone is actually regulating the product," said Cynthia Hallett, executive director of Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights (ANR). The Federal Cigarette Labeling and Advertising Act of 1965 first required the Surgeon General's Warning on cigarettes, followed by a 1984 amendment to the legislation to include the warning on advertisements.
In 2004, an estimated 44 million adults were smokers in the US. Efforts made by states and cities to protect the public from second-hand smoke have, according to Billings, "exploded" through high taxes on cigarettes and smoke-free laws, including statewide laws in California, New York and Washington, among others. According to ANR, a little over 40 percent of the population lives under laws banning indoor public smoking.
Smokers
must consider etiquette
Lana Yoo
Daily Bruin Online, May 5, 2006
Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights, citing a study conducted in May 2005 by J. Barnoya and S. A. Glantz, states that "the effects of even brief exposure (minutes to hours) to secondhand smoke are often nearly as large (averaging 80 percent to 90 percent) as chronic active smoking."
What's
the status of secondhand smoke laws?
By Ask Doctor Law by Martin E. Segal
Miami Herald, May 1, 2006
According to the American Nonsmokers' Rights Foundation, as of January, there were more than 6,000 municipalities across the country with laws requiring 100 percent smoke-free workplaces and/or restaurants and bars that affected almost 40 percent of the U.S. population. Many of these also ban smoking in public and require specified percentages of hotel and motel rooms to be nonsmoking.
Seventeen states have passed smoke-free laws. The first was passed in 1994 in California. In March, the California town of Calabasas also enacted the first law in the United States that bans smoking on streets, at bus stops, and in all other public places.
City
Roundup: State of Georgia awarded first place in clean indoor air challenge
Gwinnett Business Journal
The Americans for Nonsmokers? Rights group was awarded first place in the State of Georgia in the Clean Indoor Air Challenge of 2004 at a recent, national conference in Chicago.
The award is for the greatest number of local ordinances passed in a state in 2004, with Georgia tallying 11. Locally, Gwinnett is one of several smoke-free air ordinances in the east metro health district.
S.C.
House vote: Smokers can keep lighting up in restaurants
By Seanna Adcox, The Associated Press
Myrtle Beach Sun News
April 27, 2006
COLUMBIA - House members narrowly defeated a bill Wednesday that would ban smoking in restaurants.
After nearly two hours of debate, the House voted 55-52 to send the proposal back to committee, killing it.
All Horry County and Georgetown County House members voted against the bill except Carl Anderson, who was absent.
The close vote on the floor was surprising for a bill that many thought would never make it out of subcommittee…
Seventeen states have no-smoking laws, as do more than 450 towns, cities and counties elsewhere. The latest state to join the trend is New Jersey, with a new law that took effect April 15, according to the California-based American Nonsmokers' Rights Foundation.
City
snuffs out smoking in public spaces
Beaumont Enterprise
Dee Dixon and Sarah Moore
April 26, 2006
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. …
Other cities across the state that have some sort of smoking ban in either workplaces,
restaurants or bars include Austin, Victoria, New Braunfels, Round Rock, San
Antonio, Leander, Robinson, Copperas Cove, Woodway, Harlingen, Corpus Christi,
Dallas, El Paso, Alvin and Rollingwood, according to the American Nonsmokers'
Rights Foundation Web site.
Hawaii
anti-smoking measures are on the right track
Honolulu Star-Bulletin, April 25, 2006
NONSMOKERS will breathe easier after the Legislature enacts a broad smoking
ban that includes private facilities open to the public, beginning on Nov. 16,
the day of the Great American Smokeout. Such a ban's inconvenience to smokers
pales in comparison with the aggravation and health risks to others. …
The legislation follows a growing trend across the country, including Southern states that had been reluctant to impose such restrictions, according to data collected by the American Nonsmokers' Rights Foundation. In the past two years, nine states and 156 towns, cities and counties have approved smoking bans.
Seventeen states and 461 towns, cities and counties now have no-smoking laws.
Ban
smoking in cars with kids?
By BROCK VERGAKIS
Associated Press writer Saturday, April 22, 2006
SALT LAKE CITY -- Beverly May cringes every time she sees someone smoking in a car that has a child in it.
The director of regional advocacy for the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids worries about the effects secondhand smoke will have on children incapable of choosing whether to be in a smoke-filled automobile…
Typically, smoking bans originate at the city level, said Cynthia Hallett, executive director of Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights in Berkeley, Calif.
Nearly 500 cities nationwide had banned smoking in workplaces, restaurants and bars before legislators in Utah and Colorado passed comprehensive statewide legislation to match it.
And increasingly, cities are expanding their smoking bans to the outdoors. Midvale, a suburb about 12 miles south of Salt Lake City, joined more than 400 cities nationwide this week to ban smoking at its public parks.
"There is kind of a continuum at the city level. Once a community has really been educated about the hazards of heart disease, then they start to demand smoke-free areas where people congregate outside," Hallett said.
When
the smoke clears... Is smoking ordinance having affect on local restaurants?
By Karen Middleton
Athens News Courier
The city of Athens smoking ordinance is a good-news-bad-news scenario for restaurants that have chosen to go completely smoke free.
Under the City Council ordinance that went into effect in January 2005, food and beverage establishments may choose one of three options: smoke-free, smoke-restricted, or smoking…
The Associated Press cites figures compiled by the American Nonsmokers’ Rights Foundation, a California-based non-profit organization, that five states and 82 towns, cities and counties approved smoking bans in 2005.
Smoking ban: Sparking a new debate
Free New Mexican, April 20, 2006
At the Green Onion Tavern, a St. Michael’s Drive bar and restaurant where wafting smoke is as much a part of the ambiance as the neon beer signs and wood paneling, Michelle Duran sipped her drink between puffs on a cigarette…
A statewide New Mexico ban on smoking in nearly all indoor public spaces passed the state House of Representatives last year but failed in the Senate. Doña Ana County, where a workplace smoking ban includes bars, has the only countywide ban in New Mexico, according to the American Nonsmokers’ Rights Foundation. The state’s most populous city, Albuquerque, prohibits workplace smoking but exempts stand-alone bars. In southern Santa Fe County, Edgewood prohibits workplace smoking with no exemptions for bars.
From
Pine Bluff to Timnath, small-town America joins the no-smoking trend
AP, 2006-04-19
Associated Press
LUVERNE, Ala. -- If New York City can ban smoking in bars and restaurants, why not the town of Luverne?
"We don't see why a small rural town can't do the same thing," said Al Snellgrove, a former Luverne councilman who helped enact the ban last year.
The town's residents adapted, said Mark Grant, a smoker who owns Luverne's Our House restaurant. He's only had to tell a couple of people to put out their smokes, both visitors passing through.
Some locals still grumble. "It's a small community," Grant said. "They've got to have something to complain about."
Love them or hate them, smoking bans are popping up all over.
Last year, five states and 82 towns, cities and counties approved smoking bans, according to the American Nonsmokers' Rights Foundation . . .
"Lexington was kind of a 'shot heard round the world,"' a complete ban of smoking in bars and restaurants in a city in the heart of tobacco country, said Bronson Frick, associate director of Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights.
Proposed
smoking ban in bars, restaurants snuffed out in Michigan
By David Eggert, Associatd Press Writer | April 10, 2006
Boston Globe
LANSING, Mich. --Chris Vaive often heads to a downtown Irish pub for a cold one after a day sorting mail for the U.S. Postal Service.
He usually seeks out a bar stool near the door, closer to fresh air and hopefully farther away from the smoke. …
Nonsmokers like Vaive say they're the ones being alienated. Supporters of the ban argue that efforts to contain secondhand fumes to smoking sections are ineffective. They also note there's no evidence that bans in other states and cities have hurt sales.
Bronson Frick, associate director of the Berkeley, Calif.-based Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights, says residents in states with clampdowns on smoking have quickly embraced smokefree dining and drinking. Those who smoke can step outside for a light and then return, he argues.
"It's part of a culture change taking place at the national level," Frick says. "The public does not want to go back to the way it was."
Parks
across country restrict smoking
United Press International (UPI), April 10, 2006
CHICAGO, April 10 (UPI) -- Tobacco users in the United States are seeing another of their ever-shrinking habitat -- parks and other great outdoors -- go smokeless.
In Illinois, reports the Chicago Tribune, Buffalo Grove, Hoffman Estates and Park Ridge recently have limited or prohibited smoking in parks and outside community centers, swimming pools and skating rinks.
Nationally, nearly 400 communities from West Virginia to California currently ban smoking in parks and on beaches, Cynthia Hallett with Americans for Non-smokers' Rights in Berkeley, Calif., told the Tribune.
"Much like we have laws that protect us from asbestos or other toxic chemicals, there is no right to expose anybody to a known carcinogen," Hallett said.
Smokers
losing a refuge: Parks across region impose restrictions
By Jamie Francisco, Tribune staff reporter. Freelance reporter Robert Channick
contributed to this report
Published April 9, 2006
Chicago Tribune
One of the last sanctuaries for harassed smokers--America's great outdoors--is
increasingly off limits as communities ban tobacco lovers from taking a drag
as they stroll through the park, hit the beach or sit by the pool. …
It's part of a burgeoning national movement to limit smoking outdoors, experts
say. Nearly 400 communities from West Virginia to California currently ban smoking
in parks and on beaches, said Cynthia Hallett, executive director of Berkeley,
Calif.-based Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights. In Southern California, Orange
County upped the ante last year, banning smoking along its entire coastline.
"Much like we have laws that protect us from asbestos or other toxic chemicals, there is no right to expose anybody to a known carcinogen," Hallett said.
Sorry, you can't
smoke out here: Some cities pondering outdoor smoking bans
April 3, 2006
Stacia Glenn, Staff Writer
San Bernardino County Sun
People are huffing and puffing over anti-smoking laws as a movement to ban outdoor
smoking wafts across the country.
More than 700 cities across the country have enacted ordinances that limit outdoor smoking, according to the American Nonsmokers' Rights Foundation.
Yucaipa, where the City Council recently outlawed smoking in all 10 city parks, is the latest addition to the growing list.
Teens
learn to teach kids dangers of smoking
Newsday, April 2, 2006
Mary Ellen Pereira
In February, high school students from across Long Island attended the training
program "Teens as Teachers" sponsored by Eastern Suffolk BOCES Student
Assistance Service. The program was developed by the Americans for Nonsmokers'
Rights, an organization dedicated to protecting nonsmokers and preventing youth
from becoming addicted to tobacco.
Smokefree
laws do not hurt business revenues
The Exponent - West Lafayette,Indiana,USA
March 23, 2006
.. The Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights website (www.no-smoke.org) discussed several studies revealing little to no economic impact in those areas that are now ...
Smoking
Ban Takes Effect, Indoors and Out
New York Times, 2006-03-19
JOHN M. BRODER
One of the toughest antismoking laws in the nation took effect here Friday, the same day that a satirical movie about a reptilian tobacco lobbyist, "Thank You for Smoking," opened across the country.
"Pure serendipity," said Barry Groveman, the earnest environmental lawyer who also serves as mayor of Calabasas, a well-to-do community of 25,000 people on the western fringe of Los Angeles. Mr. Groveman said he was glad that the coincidence would help draw attention to his city's efforts to limit the harmful effects of secondhand smoke. ...
More than 700 cities around the country have enacted ordinances placing some limits on outdoor smoking, according to the American Nonsmokers' Rights Foundation, a research and advocacy group that supports antismoking legislation.
Tobacco
Lounge Blows Smoke in The Face of Chicago's New Ban
Washington Post - United States
Monday, March 20, 2006; Page A03
Kari Lydersen
Glasses clink, friends chat in plush chairs and a fire crackles in a stone hearth
at Marshall McGearty Tobacco Artisans, a "tobacco lounge" that has
opened in Chicago's trendy Wicker Park neighborhood…
... "We certainly expect them to try to put these in other cities with bans," said Annie Tegen, program manager for the group Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights. ...
Anti-smoking groups try to sever RJR ties with pageant winners
Associated Press, March 15, 2006
Miss America hopefuls and North Carolina-based tobacco giant R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. have a special relationship, and anti-smoking groups want to break it up.
The No. 2 cigarette maker has for the past few years been giving winners of Miss America state pageants $5,000 annually to promote the company's youth anti-smoking campaign, a program public health officials say is a sham.
Now a coalition of health groups is asking the association that runs the state pageants to quit working with Winston-Salem, N.C.-based R.J. Reynolds.
"R.J. Reynolds is trying to use partnerships with reputable organizations like the Miss America State Pageants to create the illusion that it has changed and is part of the solution to the tobacco problem," Matthew Myers, president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, wrote in a letter this month to the National Association of Miss America State Pageants.
R.J. Reynolds currently is teamed with 29 state pageant organizations, according to Carolyn Brinkley, senior manager of RJR's public policy programs. Kentucky is not one of those states, Brinkley said.
"None of the tobacco prevention programs designed by tobacco companies have been effective at preventing youth smoking," Cynthia Hallett, executive director of Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights, said in the statement.
Group
Angry Over Pageant Ties to Tobacco
Nancy Zuckerbrod, Associated Press
Houston Chronicle, March 16, 2006
"None of the tobacco prevention programs designed by tobacco companies have been effective at preventing youth smoking," Cynthia Hallett, executive director of Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights, said in the statement.
Namibia:
Second hand smoke is just as bad
African News Dimension, March 16, 2006
Second Hand Smoke (SHS), commonly known as passive smoking, has adverse effects that are just as detrimental as active smoking. ...
The Americans for Nonsmoker’s Rights (ANR) wrote in October 2005 that effects of brief exposure to second hand smoke are often as great as chronic smoking.
Three cigarettes smouldering in a room, says the ANR emit up to 10-fold more particle matter (PM) than an ecodiesel engine.
In pregnant women, it damages the foetus if a mother inhales the smoke directly from a cigarette and results in low birth weight, which contributes to infant mortality and health complications into adulthood.
It can also result in Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS), as infants who die
from this syndrome tend to have higher concentrations of nicotine in their lungs.
Other equally serious effects of SHS on children include impairment to a child’s
ability to learn, which results in reading deficits.
“Maternal prenatal smoking contributes to the development of anti social behaviour and attention deficit hyperactive disorder symptoms in the mother’s offspring,” says the ANR.
‘The level of second hand smoke a child is exposed to is directly proportional to the likelihood of the child becoming a smoker as an adult,” adds the Americans for Nonsmoker’s Rights.
In adult health, it causes poor lung function and respiratory disease, stroke, diabetes type 11 and also increases the risk of developing breast cancer in younger primarily pre-menopausal women.
Being a major source of PM, SHS is a risk factor for pulmonary disease, asthma, and lung cancer.
“Even a half an hour of second hand smoke exposure causes heart damage
similar to that of habitual smokers,” said ANR.
City
May Regulate Tobacco Sales
Hollister Free Lance, March 9, 2006
Citing a desire to keep kids away from tobacco, the City Council directed the city attorney to draft an ordinance Monday that will require Hollister retailers to get a license from the city to sell tobacco products....
More than 500 jurisdictions in the nation - with nearly 50 in California - have local tobacco licensing ordinances, according to Berkeley-based American Nonsmokers' Rights Foundation. Cynthia Hallet, executive director of that organization, said she encourages Hollister to adopt an ordinance of its own.
"They'd be joining a very large group," she said. Aside from regulating tobacco sales, she added, such ordinances give jurisdictions a record of who in the community sells tobacco and ensures that retailers understand laws governing the sale of tobacco. "I think it's been an effective way for cities and health departments to at least know who are the retailers and really educate them about the responsibility not to sell tobacco to minors."
Arguments
against smoke-free campaign do not alter facts
Post and Courier, March 8, 2006
The millions of dollars the tobacco industry spends on creating doubt in the minds of our citizens concerning eliminating second-hand smoke in public places has been successful again. This time, however, it has been able to influence an associate editor of The Post and Courier, who, in the editorial section of the paper on March 5, made several uninformed, unsubstantiated and emotional remarks. Of course I'm speaking about the comments made by Frank Wooten. ...
According to Americans For NonSmokers' Rights (www.no-smoke.org) as of January 3:
39.4 percent of the U.S. population (110,894,372) lives in communities that have 100 percent smoke-free workplaces and/or restaurants and/or bars...
Restaurants
prepare for smoking ban to take effect
Express Star (OK), March 1, 2006
On the door of the Oklahoma City Steakhouse owned by Greg Gawey, there’s a sign that reads: “It’s Your Choice,” informing smokers that his restaurant provides a section for them…
Sixteen other states and 2,129 municipalities across the nation also have laws restricting public smoking, according to the Berkeley, Calif.-based group Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights…
Associate Director Bronson Frick of the Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights group said Oklahoma's law has too many exceptions.
“Smoking rooms are not effective in protecting peoples' health, particularly the people who have to work in those rooms,” he said. “The science is clear.
“It gives the appearance of solving the problem without solving it.”
Thinning
the smoke
Rajesh Jain, Cavalier Daily Associate Editor
February 22, 2006
I smoked a cigarette once in my life and haven't made the same mistake since…
Critics of smoke-free laws typically bring up one primary argument: Businesses
will suffer economic losses if their patrons cannot smoke. This claim has been
invalidated by countless studies. In general, businesses that ban smoking do
not see economic losses, according to studies cited by Americans for Nonsmokers'
Rights. In some cases, businesses even see a positive impact.
Americans
Increasingly Opposed to Smoking in Public Places
NewsBlaze
Activist sees bans on public smoking extending to outdoor areas
Only a few years ago it would have been unimaginable that Virginia's State Senate would vote to ban smoking in bars, restaurants and other public places. …
Although the measure is not expected to pass Virginia's House of Delegates, 11 U.S. states have enacted laws banning smoking in indoor public places, including bars and restaurants. The group Americans for Non-smokers' Rights reported at the end of 2005 that 39 percent of U.S. citizens now live in areas that "are covered by statewide or local laws limiting smoking."
Vote
today on smoking ban: A tavern owner says the ordinance violates the rights
of 18-20-year olds
Muncie Star Press, February 21, 2006
MUNCIE -- Delaware County commissioners are scheduled to adopt a countywide smoke-free-air ordinance today that doesn't totally please either opponents or proponents.
Commissioner John Brooke calls the 12-page ordinance "a reasonable first step."
Unfortunately, some of the most heavily exposed workers, including bartenders and musicians, will still not have occupational protection from tobacco smoke in Muncie or Indianapolis, where a smoke-free-air ordinance will take effect March 1, according to Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights (ANR), Berkeley, Calif.
Smoke-free-air ordinances in Muncie, Indianapolis and many other communities exempt bars.
ANR is still congratulating Muncie, Indianapolis and other Hoosier cities for taking "an important step forward" in making themselves more attractive places to live and work.
"Last year, Men's Health (magazine) labeled Indianapolis one of 'America's Worst Urban Ashtrays,' so this new law will hopefully take them off that list next year," ANR reported.
The only Indiana city with a comprehensive smoking ban that extends into bars is Bloomington, according to ANR.
DuPage County Board of Health endorses statewide smoking ban, calls for county
cigarette tax (item not available online)
HealthPro 17(1), January 2006
The DuPage County Board on Jan. 24 approved a resolution regarding smoking
bans in unincorporated areas of DuPage County. The resolution supports state
legislation seeking that authority. The resolution is similar to a resolution
approved by the DuPage County Board of Health earlier in January. That resolution
also urges a higher cigarette tax in DuPage County to discourage more young
people from smoking. Shown in this photo are persons who appeared on behalf
of the resolution at the county board meeting. They include, from left, Linda
Kurzawa, county board member and board of health president, Frieda Glantz, Project
Manager for Americans for Non
Smokers Rights, Kathy Drea, public policy director for the American Cancer Society.
Air
is unlikely to clear in smoky halls of Congress
USA Today, February 13, 2006
By Andrea Stone
WASHINGTON Smoking in most indoor workplaces here will soon be illegal
because of a vote by the District of Columbia City Council. But in a few ornate
congressional alcoves, the term "smoke-filled room" still will apply.
…
Fifteen states, New York, Chicago, dozens of other cities and countries such
as Ireland and Sweden have approved smoking bans in workplaces, restaurants
or bars, according to the American Non-smokers' Rights Foundation.
Protecting
Europeans from secondhand smoke: time to act -- Glantz and Glantz
European Heart Journal, 2006-02-08
Frieda K. Glantz1 and Stanton A. Glantz2,*
Raupach et al.1 provide a concise review of the effects of secondhand smoke on the cardiovascular system that complements recent reviews2,3 to synthesize the clinical and experimental evidence that secondhand smoke has rapid and large effects on platelet activation, endothelial function, and myocardial oxygen balance. The effects of secondhand smoke on these important mediators of cardiac function are both direct and indirect, acting through vascular inflammation, and changes in autonomic function. As these changes affect long-term risks, such as developing atheroschlerotic heart disease, most of .
Anti-smoking
becomes as big as all outdoors
Sunday, February 05, 2006
By PATRICIA NORRIS
The Republican
The last permissible place to light up a cigarette could be your own home.
As the smoke-free movement has wound its way through restaurants, bars and the workplace, outside public locations like parks and beaches may be next on the hit list. ..
Bronson Frick of the Berkeley, Calif., group called Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights, said that most outdoor restrictions are not efforts to ban smoking entirely.
"The biggest smoking section in the world is the great outdoors," he said.
Most legislative efforts concentrate on areas where there is excessive cigarette litter or where secondhand smoke may find its way back into a closed building through air vents or proximity to windows or doors, he said.
"Smoking bans are not about banning smoking. It is about asking people to smoke in ways that do not harm other people," he said.
Officials consider banning smoking in state correctional centers
Tuesday February 07, 2006
Charleston Daily Mail
Inmates in West Virginia's correctional centers would be forced to give up smoking and all other tobacco products by July 1 if the state moves ahead with a plan to create tobacco-free prisons.
West Virginia's regional jails have been smoke free for a decade. Expanding the ban to the state's 16 prisons and 11 juvenile facilities would follow a nationwide trend to prohibit all tobacco products in correctional facilities.
"We were looking at the health costs associated with treating tobacco-related illnesses,'' Corrections Commissioner Jim Rubenstein said Monday. "It was something we had been looking at for a period of time and has now come to fruition.''
Federal prisons are smoke free and 38 states have adopted smoke free or partial smoke free protection policies, according to the American Nonsmokers' Rights Foundation.
Smoking
battle a national debate: Victoria's not alone in fight
January 28, 2006
PATRICK BRENDEL - Victoria Advocate
If a proposed referendum to expand the smoking ban makes it on the May 13 ballot,
as it looks like it will, Victoria will officially toss its hat into the secondhand
smoke ring, where a contentious debate already rages nationwide.
"Victoria's smoke-free air debate is significant nationally," said Bronson Frick, associate director of the national organization Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights.
Begun in 1976 and based in Berkeley, Calif., ANR's mission is to "protect nonsmokers from unwanted and deadly exposure to secondhand smoke."
The people's agenda: a town hall meeting
The people's turn to talk
Indianapolis Star, January 29, 2006
OTHER ISSUES
Maria Tishner, Marion County: The Latino community is one of the most affected
in terms of tobacco usage. According to a report from Americans for Nonsmokers'
Rights, Latinos are less likely to be covered by health insurance than any other
ethnic group. Only 4.9 percent of Latinos are covered by private insurance.
An increase of 50 cents in the tobacco tax would help the Latino community reduce
its smoking and address a major health issue. The tax increase funds should
be used for prevention, education and cessation programs.
Calif.
Says Secondhand Smoke a Pollutant
AP, 2006-01-26
DON THOMPSON, Associated Press Writer
California became the first state to declare secondhand smoke a toxic air pollutant Thursday, citing its link to breast cancer. Experts said the decision may have more impact worldwide than it does in the largely smoke-free state.
The decision by the California Air Resources Board puts environmental tobacco smoke in the same category as diesel exhaust, arsenic and benzene.
The unanimous decision relied on a September report that found a sharply increased risk of breast cancer in young women exposed to secondhand smoke. It also links drifting smoke to premature births, asthma and heart disease, other cancers, and numerous health problems in children...
”This is no longer some crazy, California, Left Coast way of thinking," said Cynthia Hallett, executive director of Berkeley-based Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights. She cited smoking bans that have been enacted or are being considered across the nation and in other countries.
Boost
for bids to curb smoking: State becomes first to list secondhand smoke as a
pollutant
By Chris Bowman, Sacramento Bee
January 27, 2006
California became the first state in the country Thursday to place secondhand
tobacco smoke alongside tailpipe and smokestack exhausts as a toxic air pollutant
and candidate for regulation.
The designation, approved 6-0 by the California Air Resources Board, lends heavy ammunition to public health advocates seeking greater protection, especially for children. It is expected to revive legislative efforts to ban drivers from smoking when children are in their vehicles and bolster efforts to curb smoking in multifamily dwellings...
Cynthia Hallett, executive director of the nonprofit Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights in Berkeley, predicted that the California smoking studies, the product of more than a decade of research and peer review, will have far-reaching influence across the United States and abroad.
The report probably will come into play in the current debate over smoking restrictions in Utah and in many towns across the Midwest, Hallett said.
Kick
the habit to save some cash? Smoking in Joliet: Ban proponent pushes incentives
for businesses
By Charles B. Pelkie Staff Writer
Joliet herald-news, Jan 26 2006
JOLIET Bar and restaurant owners breathed a sigh of relief after a proposal for a cigarette smoking ban appeared to wheeze its dying breath this week.
But the smoking debate continues to gasp for air…
Cindy Jackson, who manages the Will County Health Department's tobacco control
and prevention program, agreed that an incentive program might be a good start.
"Anything that will get a restaurant to go smoke-free is good," she said. "It's good for the workers and the patrons."
But she insisted that while filtration systems may reduce smoke, they do not eliminate the harmful chemicals and toxins that remain in the air. She pointed to a list of disclaimers by filtration system retailers and manufacturers, many of which state that they do not provide complete protection against the harmful effects of secondhand smoke. The list was compiled by the advocacy group Americans for Non-Smokers' Rights.
Ban
on smoking may be expanded to Del Mar streets
San Diego Union Tribune
January 25, 2006
DEL MAR – City staff is looking into the possibility of prohibiting smoking
on city streets and sidewalks.
The City Council asked for a staff report on the matter Monday night when it
voted unanimously, with no public opposition, to ban smoking at Del Mar's beaches
and parks.
Annie Tegen of Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights, a national group that lobbies
for laws protecting nonsmokers from secondhand smoke, said that if Del Mar outlaws
smoking on streets and sidewalks, it "would definitely be one of the first"
cities in the country to do so.
Tobacco
company opens upscale bar to tout premium blends
AFP
In a bold move aimed at creating a premium market for cigarettes, tobacco giant RJ Reynolds has opened an upscale bar in Chicago designed to be a smoker's paradise…
The new marketing ploy is both insidious and an old trick, said Bronson Frick, assistant director of California-based Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights. "The whole business of making smoking seem desirable and glamorous goes back to Hollywood in the 40's and 50's with product placement in the movies," he said. "It's insidious that the tobacco companies are still seeking to portray their products as sexy or desirable when the mountain of science continues to grow about the health risks of their products."
After
public meeting, aldermen should vote on smoking ban (01/18)
Commercial Dispatch (MS)
Thursday night, Starkville residents will have an opportunity to voice their opinions about a proposed ban on smoking in public buildings in the city.
If Starkville enacts the ban, it will join a growing number of cities around
the country that have implemented such clean air ordinances. To date, according
to the American Nonsmokers' Rights Foundation, a total of 2,129 U.S. municipalities
have some kind of law restricting smoking.
Out of that number, 441 towns have a 100 percent smoke-free ordinance in effect
for workplaces, restaurants and/or bars.
Sixteen states also have enacted full or partial bans on smoking in indoor public spaces. Montana was the most recent state to approve a clean air law.
SULLUM:
Chicago's (Legal) Smokeasy
Reason Magazine, 2006-01-19
Although the Marshall McGearty Tobacco Lounge also serves alcohol, snacks, and coffee drinks, it's exempt from the ban (which at any rate does not cover bars or restaurants with bars until July 2008) because it counts as a "retail tobacco store," . . .
Predictably, antismokers are complaining that, although the place complies with the letter of the law, it does not comply with its "spirit," inasmuch as it allows people to relax in a pleasant environment and enjoy a cigarette. They also worry about the lounge's impact on impressionable young people. "It's trying to get an 18-to-25 demographic here, to make smoking seem desirable, attractive, like a secret club," says Bronson Frick, associate director for Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights.
First people like Frick campaign to banish smokers from virtually every indoor location; then they complain that the few remaining sanctuaries have the aura of "a secret club." This is like prohibitionists complaining that speakeasies make drinking seem cool.
As
Smoke Clears, Tobacco Maker Opens Lounge
By MONICA DAVEY
New York Times, January 19, 2006
CHICAGO, Jan. 18 - The room is lined with vintage ashtrays, delicate lighters, matches and pens shaped like cigarettes. The scent, naturally, is of smoke…
"It's trying to get an 18-to-25 demographic here, to make smoking seem desirable, attractive, like a secret club," said Bronson Frick, associate director for Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights, a group based in Berkeley, Calif.
Smoke
free in NP?
By JOHN LINDENBERGER, The North Platte (NE) Telegraph
01/18/2006
As more and more businesses and even entire communities elect to be 100 percent
smoke free, local community members gathered Tuesday night to begin discussions
on whether North Platte should follow suit…
According to the American Nonsmokers' Rights Foundation, there are currently
nine states that prohibit smoking in the workplace. In addition, four states
prohibit smoking in all bars and restaurants.
Things
to know in '06: Pertinent issues likely to change K-State, Kansas and the United
States
Published on Wednesday, January 18, 2006
Annette Lawless, Kansas State Collegian
This month, Mercy Regional Heath Center practitioners have started enforcing
a workplace smoking ban at the Lafene Health Center and Mercy Regional Health
Center locations.
According to the American Nonsmokers’ Rights Foundation, this will add Mercy Regional Health Center to the 300 total workplaces that completely ban smoking in the United States. Nearly 70 percent of the U.S. workforce has functioned under a smoke-free policy.
Henshaw:
Hooked on the hookah
By Tom Henshaw/ Henshaw
Thursday, January 12, 2006
Just when you thought we had the smoking demon on the run, along comes the
hookah…
"The social norms are changing," says Annie Tegen, spokeswoman for
Americans for Nonsmokers Rights. "It's no longer okay to blow smoke in
someone's face.
Is
lighting up in WL really up in smoke? Proposed ban up for decisive vote (IL)
By Curt Slyder
January 8, 2006
By the time Purdue University students arrive for the next fall semester, those
who smoke might have to search around to find a place where they can light up.
A proposed ordinance banning tobacco smoking indoors at workplaces and virtually
all bars and restaurants in West Lafayette is up for final approval at Monday's
City Council meeting.
When the ordinance came up for an initial vote in November, citizens in the
audience were sharply divided. Nevertheless, the council gave it a solid 6-1
approval.
If council members approve it on second reading Monday night, the ordinance
would take effect July 1, opening a new, smoke-free chapter in West Lafayette
history and becoming the first such ordinance in the 10-county Lafayette region.
A growing number of counties and municipalities across the country have enacted
smoking bans, according to Pete Hanauer, policy analyst for the Berkeley, Calif.-based
American Nonsmokers' Rights Foundation.
In 1985, 216 communities had what Hanauer described as "some kind of clean
indoor-air laws." Today, 2,140 communities have such laws, and 124 communities
have outright bans on smoking in restaurants, bars and workplaces.
Smoking
bans popping up all over
Pamela Brogan
Gannett News Service
WASHINGTON — Smoking bans have spread from federal offices to public transport
to bars and even beaches over the past 15 years.
About 39 percent of the U.S. population lives in an area with a smoke-free workplace
law, according to a nonsmokers' rights group. More than 2,000 cities and 5,700
municipalities have some kind of smoking ban, according to Americans for Nonsmokers'
Rights, a national lobbying group that seeks to protect nonsmokers from secondhand
smoke.
JENKINS:
Questions About city, county, tennis and smoke
Evansville (IN) Courier, 2006-01-01
RON JENKINS, Editor
Did you realize that, according to the top story in the Thursday edition of USA TODAY, 118 states and localities have "outlawed smoking in all workplaces, restaurants and bars"? What's more, can you believe that, according to the article, 39 percent of Americans "are covered by statewide or local laws limiting smoking"? When did the first such law take effect? Would you believe in 1993, just a few short years ago?