ASHLAND —
We commend members of the Greenup City Council for taking a small step toward making a trip to a city-owned building or a ride in a city vehicle more healthy and less unpleasant by giving first reading approval to an ordinance banning smoking inside city-owned vehicles and buildings. The vote was 4 to 1, with only council member David Black opposing the measure.
Mayor Lundie Meadows said if the ordinance is approved on second reading, smoking still will be allowed on city poperty but prohibited in all five city structures including the water and sewer plants, the Keey’s building, fire department and city building. Smoking also would be banned in the 10 vehicles the city owns. Most are driven by multiple drivers.
Meadows said smoking has been prohibited inside the city building since he took office in 2011. He banned it by executive order, but the ordinance will codify that order, making it more permanent.
Meadows gave several reasons for proposing the ban, including health, professionalism as well as the damage cigarette smoke can do to buildings. He said citizens come to facilities like the city building to do business and should not be subjected to second-hand smoke, which he described as a “nuisance.”
Meadows said smoking also causes damage to buildings because chemicals in smoke can cause browning and peeling paint as well as saturate the carpet and other furnishings with odors.
Our hope is that banning smoking in city-owned buildings and vehilces will be just the first step in a process that ultimately will lead to a much broader ban on public smoking like the ordianance in nearby Ashland.
Mayor Meadows was quick to say he has no intention of pushing for a city-wide smoking ban in public like Ashland has. We recognize that there’s a huge difference between banning smoking in city-owned buidings and vehicles and prohibiting smoking in all workplaces in a city. But progress often comes in baby steps, and the same arguments that Meadows used in banning smoking in city-owned vehicles and buildings also apply to all buildings used by the public in the city.
The Ashland City Commission approved its anti-smoking ordinance at a time when many other Kentucky cities were doing the same thing. No Ashland commissioner was defeated for re-election because of his or her vote on the anti-smoking ordinance, and no Kentucky city that has approved an anti-smoking ordinance in recent years has repealed that ordinance. Indeed, some like Louisville have strengthened their ordinances on smoking in public.
In one city (Bowling Green) a candidate for the city commission ran on a promise to support an anti-smoking ordinance similar to those that exist in Ashland, Louisiville and Lexington. His victory over an incumbent commissioner who had opposed any limitations on smokng in public gave the Bowling Green commission the votes it needed to enact the ban.
There is a good reason why ordinances that restrict smoking are so popular. Even in a tobacco state like Kentucky, three out of every four adults do not smoke, and even some smokers enjoy dining in a restaurant free of the distinctive odor of a burning cigarette.
We don’t see Greenup or any other area city or county soon joining Ashland in banning most smoking in public, but we think that day is coming. After all, in neighboring Ohio voters overwhlemingly approved a statwide ban on smoking in public, and bills that would restrict smoking keep gaining support in the Kentucky General Assembly.
We think the time will come when the legislature will approve a statewide ban on most smoking in public. It may not happen in 2013, but it most assuredly is coming. As we see it, it is not a matter of if, but when, legislators will approve a law to restrict smoking in public.
For now, we’ll have to settle for Greenup’s baby steps.
Opinion
No smoking
Greenup's action could be step toward expanded ban
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