Northwest Arkansas Times
Posted on Monday, September 1, 2003
The Fayetteville City Council should forego efforts to send the proposed restaurant smoking ban to the ballot and avoid any further delays on the matter by taking an up-or-down vote on the ordinance at its meeting Tuesday. All of the facts and arguments have been presented, and prolonging the debate further will only amount to obstruction and divisiveness. It's time for a decision. There are already indications that if the discussion over restaurant smoking continues, it will only devolve into an emotional cadre of slogan-happy rhetoric. Already both sides have exhausted a tired array of one-liners that boil the debate down to a least common denominator. The health arguments have been made, as have the less-convincing arguments about private property regulation. It's time for the City Council to decide whether to abate the deadly secondhand smoke that now pollutes the community's restaurants.
We have from the beginning taken a stand in favor of smoke-free restaurants. With restaurants already subject to a host of health regulations, it seems not excessive to prohibit the use of a product harmful to those who choose not to partake in it. Secondhand smoke has proven health effects, the likes of which have already led to the banning of cigarettes in most public and commercial buildings. Restaurants are now one of the sole hold-outs, and for no logical reason.
The ordinance has been amended to make it more palatable to the times. Bars have been exempted, even though bars are workplaces that likewise subject their employees to a harmful environment. Nonetheless, progress is often a matter of taking the appropriate steps at the appropriate times, and so we have embraced the ordinance in its current form.
Putting this matter to the vote would remove it from the serious health discussion that it should be. It would instead turn on emotional appeals by both sides and subject the health of Fayetteville residents and workers to a popularity contest. No other regulations that we can think of are so treated. Protecting the health of residents is the city's duty, not a matter best left to majority whim. In all honesty, this newspaper would benefit from such a referendum through advertising dollars on both sides of the debate. But the issue would also fall into a morass of shouting matches and knee-jerk reactions that have little to do with the health issue that this truly is.
Let no one convince the council that this is a matter of "free choice." Contrary to the popular rhetoric at some of Fayetteville's politically active eating establishments, restaurants have no "free choice" when it comes to smoking inside their dining rooms. In fact, the city already regulates smoking in restaurants by requiring a non-smoking section.
In addition, let no one suggest that this ordinance is about the regulation of "private behavior." This ordinance is not about keeping people from smoking. It's about keeping people from smoking around others, who are harmed by the secondhand smoke they must breathe as a result. Regulating smoking in restaurants is no different than regulating drinking in public or in one's car: The regulation is aimed at the hazard — the potential danger — presented by the behavior at a given time or place, not at the behavior itself.
It is a choice for people to eat at restaurants, this is true. But it is still not the choice of the restaurant to keep unclean facilities or serve contaminated food. That's against the law. Likewise, it is indeed a choice for employees to work at restaurants. But it is not the choice of employers to provide an unsafe working environment for their employees. Ever since coal miners won working rights against their mine owners, the idea that any employee has a "choice" to work has been a dubious one and not legally defensible in the arena of workplace regulations.
The council has heard all of these arguments and no outstanding issues are left to be discussed. Secondhand smoke will remain just as hazardous no matter how many red herrings are served up by those opposed to clean air in Fayetteville restaurants.
Tuesday is the time for the council to act. Pass the smoking ban.
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