ASH NEWS: Calabasas Outdoor Smoking Ban -- The News Is No News [02/06/06-7]

Only a few years ago, when Friendship Heights banned smoking on its sidewalks -- but not on its streets -- it was major news all across the country. ASH was called upon to defend the law and its underlying rationale on program after program -- including CBS-TV's Sunday Morning with Charles Osgood and Eric Engberg -- and in many newspapers. There were editorials expressing concern that a community would try to ban smoking outdoors, and particular outrage that it would be banned even on sidewalks.

A law suit was brought challenging the law. ASH -- without the support of any other antismoking organization -- was forced to go to court to defend the constitutionality of laws banning smoking outside, even on sidewalks. The shock and (for some) outrage didn't subside until the law was tossed out on a local technicality.

But last week, when the City of Calabasas voted to ban smoking in virtually all outdoor areas -- including streets as well as sidewalks, and also including restaurant outdoor dining areas -- there was very little publicity and virtually no public outcry. ASH could find no editorial opposing it. Not a single smoker nor a single business owner testified against it. ASH and other major antismoking organizations backed it, and many others who testified wanted an even stronger ordinance.

Today, outdoor smoking bans are hardly news. There are over 700 hundred of them. Voters in Washington State overwhelmingly approved a new state law to ban smoking around entrances to buildings, and New York residents apparently share the same sentiments.

Yes, outdoor smoking bans are no longer news. Other communities are moving in the same direction. Once nonsmokers see how well the laws work, a wave of similar ordinances can be expected. Smokers will probably have to learn to adjust to not being able to smoke on sidewalks just as they adjusted to not being able to smoke on airplanes, in offices, and in many buildings.

Moreover, more reasons for banning smoking are being recognized and accepted. As justification for this most sweeping smoking ban of any American jurisdiction, the Calabasas City Council cited far more than the dangers of exposing nonsmokers to a substance which has been found by the EPA to be a "Group A Carcinogen," and by California to be "toxic air pollutant." It also cited the need to protect "children from exposure to smoking and tobacco," to reduce "the potential for children to associate smoking and tobacco with a healthy lifestyle," to protect "the public from smoking and tobacco-related litter and pollution," and to affirm and promote "the family-friendly atmosphere of the City's public places."

Many of these relatively new justifications for a sweeping ban on smoking outdoors were those which have been advanced for years by Action on Smoking and Health (ASH), a national legal-action antismoking and nonsmokers' rights organization which first started the nonsmokers' rights movement and then helped it move outdoors. Many of the arguments for banning smoking outdoors are collected at http://ash.org/outdoors.pdf

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Please credit ASH, and include ASH's web address: http://ash.org

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