More signs that a smoking ban is on the way to Wichita, sooner or later: Garden City in western Kansas last week approved a smoking ban in bars, restaurants and most other public places starting Jan. 8.
Lawrence, Salina, Hutchinson, Abilene and Concordia have also passed laws that either ban or restrict public smoking. Derby’s city council will discuss a ban later this month. More than 100 Wichita-area hospitals and clinics recently announced plans to go smoke-free. And Wichita’s anti-tobacco coalition is promising to fire up the issue again in coming months.
The trend is clear. The documented health hazards of secondhand smoke are giving new momentum to these efforts nationwide.
It’s just a matter of time before Wichita clears the air.
Posted by Randy Scholfield
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36 Comments
I am not a regular smoker, but enjoy a few when Im putting down some cold ones.
I am in agreement with the smoking bans. The smoke is a hazard to people, and it should not intrude on other peoples health. PERIOD!!!
There will be bitching and moaning in the beginning, but we will get used to it as time passes on.
I still think it is up to the descrection of the business owner.
Although it would be nice to see it gone from restaurants. But I think banning it from bars is a bit far. Nothing says a good bar without smoke in the air.
Ben and I came up with a simple plan that I think all smokers and non-smokers can agree with…
1) Smoking would be prohibited in and on all public buildings, hospitals and schools (except for truly dedicated smoking areas)
2) All “restaurants” without dedicated air handling or purification systems would be non-smoking. Restaurants with those dedicated air systems or dedicated rooms to keep the smoke separated can have smokers.
3) There would be an exemption for any place that is designated as a “Bar” by the city. That designation is for bars receiving more than like 50% of its income coming from liquor sales… (correct me if im wrong) Those facilities may be full smoking or non smoking or both… its up to management… BECAUSE it is a facility that doesn’t traditionally have kids and the people who go there understand the situation of smoke…
Smokers & Non-smokers, what do you think???
(i think this makes since, im tired… if it doesn’t, i apologize, im having problems getting thoughts to keyboard…)
Ban smoking in restaurants. If you can’t make it through dinner without a smoke, eat at home. Leave the bars and clubs alone.
lol, u know whats funny XXX, we went to a dinner and show tonight and it was amazing how many people darted out of the building after dinner… it was about 1.5 hour introduction and dinner before the show and people were practically running to the doors to smoke…
I agree, see post above…
Oh, I’d also like to see an ordinance that states you can not smoke within say, 25 feet of a doorway into a building, service areas exempt…
Tony,
I think that’s fair. And I’m a smoker. (Oh, please, don’t everyone jump on me. I’m trying, really.) It’s one of my 3 vices, along with pop/soda and, of course, this blog.
I am a regular smoker, I can not remember the last time I was in a restaurant where smoking was allowed. So I would have to say for the most part it is already being done. Every non-smoker has their “horror stories” as I have my own of non-smokers. I am still mystified by the day I was at the far end of the building of Dillons in Augusta When a father walked his four y.o. son completely out of the way in order to walk by me. Just so he could say out loud to his son, “Some people are so rude and smoke right where you have to walk by!”. He then walked the boy back half of the length of the building just to get to his car. I was nearly forty feet from the doors. Are there rude smokers? Of course as there are rude non-smokers, at work our smoking area is the smaller of two break rooms. Yet it is always full and overcrowded, most non-smokers even set in there. As the majority of employees are smokers and if a non-smoker want to talk to anyone they often come in the smoking room.
The majority of smokers are considerate, standing away from entry doors if someone ask them to put out their cigarette they will. The majority of non-smokers are considerate too, it is a shame that both groups have some real jerks to ruin it for all.
FYI, if we start to ban or restrict harmful actions done by others or that which some may find offensive to even see. You need to start eating that cheeseburger in a locked closet, hide in a corner when using the cell phone, yeah go to the women’s room to feed or change that baby. Stop listening to the radio or CD while driving. never talk above a whisper or stop talking at all. The list could go on and on of things that can be dangerous and offensive to see. It is legal for me to smoke and yes I will take into consideration that others choose not to smoke and take actions so they do not have to breath in my smoke. But I do expect other to show me the same respect. The other side of the coin is if you are offended by smoking or even the sight of it. You should wait to go to the store or restaurant until I leave. Go only to non-smoking restaurants, lock yourself in your home if you do not want to be expose to smoking. Stand only in acceptable areas while at any store where non-smoking is allowed. Sound fair? How about be subject to ridicule for not smoking anywhere your children might be even in the house you are paying for! I have one room where I smoke in the house and that is understood. I like a number of smoker use to go outside to smoke at home. Till winter came and it occurred to me that here I was standing in the cold, snowy weather outside a house I was paying for and warmth was just a few feet the other side of the door.
I will defend your right to eat anything that is legal, even though it can cause you to suffer, if you feel lonely in your car and need to talk to someone on a cell phone I think you should be able to. Just be responsible and considerate of others while doing it.
I don’t want to smell your smoke or your smelly clothes and hair when your close. Have some class and stay home if you don’t have the back bone to stop smoking. Its just another addiction that can be cured if you just had enough guts and class, but you don’t so you whine like little babies. The only think lower than a pedophile is a drunk and a smoker.How that??? stick that in your pipe and smoke it :-)
What’s the matter Politicalmom, things get too quiet over on the Salina blog?
The thing that’s really smelly is that attitude.
“Its just another addiction that can be cured if you just had enough guts and class, but you don’t so you whine like little babies.”
Sounds to me like you’re the one doing the whinning.
Good post, Writerdog. Politicalmom, your attitude stinks worse than a smoker.
It appears that a lot of this debate is about power, not what is harmful in our society.
Granted, smoking is not the healthiest lifestyle for a person to live. But where will it end? Once smoking is banned because it shortens life, what will be next? Will we ban french fries? Older cars without catalytic converters? Diesel trucks and busses within the city limits? Alcohol? Fast food? Coffee and soft drinks with caffeine? Bad attitudes? Grumpy people? Lazy people? Overweight people?
It seems we can always point to someone else who is a problem and overlook our own needs for improvement. Writerdog, you could quit smoking and be a nonsmoker tomorrow morning. Politicalmom will still be a bitch tomorrow morning. Only she can change that and I think she is too blind toward her own problems to change.
We need some common sense to apply to the needs of our society. There are places where it is appropriate for a smoker to indulge his habit. A bar is one of them. Generally, unless there is a separate area, resturants and public places are not. The workplace is not appropriate unless there are designated areas. The home is for the individual to decide.
I have always been a proponent of business choices, if the business chooses to facilitate to smokers then why not allow them to do so?
Until the government bans cigarettes they shouldn’t be able to be so restricitive. It is just silly.
I’ll lay ya odds that politicalmom in addition to being a lousy poster from a dead blog is ALSO a former smoker. The ones who have quit are ALWAYS the most militant.
Good post writerdog …
Surgeon General Resigns:
It did not make headlines like his pronouncement recently, but the Surgeon General quietly resigned last week.
He was not going to be reappointed after the professionals actually read the second hand smoking study he spouted off about. The report did NOT indicate anything of the sort he stated at the news conference, nada, zip. Nor have other studies.
The EPA’s own analysis of several studies was thrown out of court for the EPA’s manipulation of the data. They did a study of 30 studies and below is the result of their study and the courts. The EPA did not manipulate the study data, they adjusted their acceptance criteria so the data would look bad when it was not.
I have been a Health and Safety professional for 25 years and we have to use valid scientific data to analyze such things as chemical exposures and incident causes. If you have bad data you have conclusions that result in actions that either do nothing or even may aggravate the situation.
Ban smoking if you or your business does not like the smell etc. But using bad science to make public policy to do it is going down a nasty path.
A sheriff in Nebraska recently stated he was going to start arresting parents for child abuse if he saw them smoking with a child. Now see where you want to go with that one……government creating more criminals…Kline , or any AG should like that one..more to do, more to do, etc.
EPA’s sad never ending story of manipulation:Judges actual opinion is here:http://www.forces.org/evidence/epafraud/files/osteen.htm
==========================================In December of 1992 the EPA released it’s now famous report on second hand smoke. The report claimed that SHS causes 3,000 deaths a year, and classified it as a class A carcinogen.
This was, and remains, a powerful weapon in the anti-smokers arsenal. If a smoker is only hurting himself, he can argue that it’s no one else’s business. But if he is hurting everyone around him, all kinds of restrictive legislation can be justified.
Fact: The EPA announced the results of the study before it was finished.
Fact: The study was a Meta Analysis, an analysis of existing studies.Meta Analysis is very difficult to do accurately, and is the easiest kind of study to fake and manipulate. With a disease as rare as lung cancer, leaving out just a few important studies can skew the results considerably.The term “Meta Study” is often used to describe this type of report, but the word “study” is inaccurate. The EPA has never conducted nor financed a single ETS study. They have only analyzed the studies of others. It is more accurate to refer to it as an analysis, and to its publication as a report.
Fact: The first step in a meta analysis is identifying all of the relevant studies. The EPA located 33 studies that compared ETS exposure to lung cancer rates.
Fact: The EPA selected 31 of the 33 studies. Later they rejected one of their chosen studies, bringing the total to 30.
Fact: On page 3-46 of the report the EPA estimates, based on nicotine measurements in non-smokers blood, “this would translate to the equivalent of about one-fifth of a cigarette per day.”
Fact: Studies that measured actual exposure by having non-smokers wear monitors indicate even this low estimate is exaggerated. Actual exposure (for people who live and/or work in smoky environments) is about six cigarettes per year. (See also the study by Oak Ridge National Laboratories.)
Fact: In 1995 The Congressional Research Service (CRS) released a review of the EPA report.The CRS was highly critical of both the EPA’s methods and conclusions.
Fact: According to the CRS “The studies relied primarily on questionnaires to the case and control members, or their surrogates, to determine EST exposure and other information pertinent to the studies.”Questionnaires can be notoriously inaccurate, as discussed in Epidemiology 102, but in this case some of them were not even filled out by the people being studied, but by “surrogates.” In other words, some of the information was unverified hearsay.
Fact: The CRS pointed out that “from a group of 30 studies. . six found a statistically significant (but small) effect, 24 found no statistically significant effect and six of the 24 found a passive smoking effect opposite to the expected relationship.”
Fact: Three other large US studies were in progress during the EPA’s study. The EPA used data from one uncompleted study, the Fontham study, and ignored the other two, Brownson and Kabat.Fact: The Fontham study showed a small increase in risk. The CRS report referred to it as “a positive risk that was barely statistically significant.” (p. 25)
Fact: The CRS report said the Brownson study, which the EPA ignored, showed “no risk at all.” (p.25)Most researchers routinely make their raw data available after studies have been published. Does Fontham’s refusal to make the data available make them more credible, or less credible?Fact: The EPA based their numbers on a meta analysis of just 11 studies. The analysis showed no increase in risk at the 95% confidence level.
Fact: Even after excluding most of the studies, the EPA couldn’t come up with 3,000 deaths, but they had already announced the results.
So they doubled their margin of error.
Let me repeat that, because it may seem hard to believe: After failing to achieve their pre-announced results by ignoring half of the data, they doubled their margin of error!
Would any legitimate epidemiologist keep their job if they were caught doubling their margin of error to support a pre-announced conclusion?
Fact: After juggling the numbers, The EPA came up with an RR (Relative Risk) of ETS causing lung cancer 1.19. In layman’s terms that means:
• Exposure to the ETS from a spouse increases the risk of getting lung cancer by 19%.• Where you’d usually see 100 cases of cancer you’d see 119.
Fact: A RR of less than 2.0 is usually written off as an insignificant result. An RR of 3.0 or higher is considered desirable. (See Epidemiology 101 for more details.)
This rule is routinely ignored when the subject is second hand smoke.
Facts: In review: The EPA ignored nearly two-thirds of the data. The EPA then doubled their margin of error to come up with their desired results.
Fact: Although the EPA declared ETS was a Class A carcinogen with an RR of 1.19, in analysis of OTHER AGENTS they found relative risks of 2.6 and 3.0 insufficient to justify a Group A classification.Fact: In 1998 Judge William Osteen vacated the study – declaring it null and void after extensively commentating on the shoddy way it was conducted. His decision was 92 pages long.
Fact: Osteen used the term “cherry-picking” to describe he way the EPA selected their data. “First, there is evidence in the record supporting the accusation that EPA “cherry picked” its data. Without criteria for pooling studies into a meta- analysis, the court cannot determine whether the exclusion of studies likely to disprove EPA’s a priori hypothesis was coincidence or intentional. Second, EPA’s excluding nearly half of the available studies directly conflicts with EPA’s purported purpose for analyzing the epidemiological studies and conflicts with EPA’s Risk Assessment Guidelines.”
Fact: Osteen found other deep flaws in the the EPA’s methodology. In his judgment he stated: “The record and EPA’s explanations to the court make it clear that using standard methodology, EPA could not produce statistically significant results with its selected studies. Analysis conducted with a .05 significance level and 95% confidence level included relative risks of 1. Accordingly, these results did not confirm EPA’s controversial a priori hypothesis. In order to confirm its hypothesis, EPA maintained its standard significance level but lowered the confidence interval to 90%. This allowed EPA to confirm its hypothesis by finding a relative risk of 1.19, albeit a very weak association. EPA’s conduct raises several concerns besides whether a relative risk of 1.19 is credible evidence supporting a Group A classification.
EPA cannot show a statistically significant association between ETS and lung cancer.”
The Judges opinion can be found here for your reading pleasure.
How many more freedoms will be taken? If a business allows smoking and you don’t like smoking then don’t go there! What a simple solution!
It was listed in the article the number of places that have banned smoking so you can see that the issue is being addressed without government coming in and mandating it.
poor STS…………..the nasty ole gomnint is going to ban cancer causing smoke in restaraunts and bars. Hell, we all know that tobacco smoke doesn’t cause cause cancer. That damned gomnint lies…….just listen to the lies Al Gore is spreading ’bout global warming! Damned gomnint!
I’m not a smoker and my father died of lung cancer from smoking; but, I support leaving it to individual business owners to decide. If a place is too smokey, I don’t have to patronize it. Just another example of the busy bodies with nothing better to do than to save the rest of us from dying, which of course we all will.
Gee Apophis, you criticized me for writing “arncha” for “aren’t you”. Now you are copycatting me, as you did in your first WEBlog post. You remind me of my parrot. (She makes cats and a bird dog britanny spaniel run away from her. Amazing little animal.)
Just how is the amount of second hand smoke determined? I think any study would be bogus without a scientif method measuring amout of exposure.
Don’t flatter yorself heartlander……………”copycating” sounds so 3rd grade! The “slang” was for the benefit of STS
How Many..?
Studies that measured actual exposure by having non-smokers wear monitors indicate that actual exposure (for people who live and/or work in smoky environments) is about SIX Cigarettes per year. (See also the study by Oak Ridge National Laboratories.)
I use these same devices used to monitor welding fume exposure in the workplace.
These are small pumps that pull in the fume particulate through a cyclone device to measure only the particles that are small enough to get in the lungs. (respirable fraction) most particulates are either to LARGE to get in the lungs and are trapped in the nose etc. Or are to SMALL to get trapped and are inhaled and then exhaled. Only a very small portion are of a size to remain caught in the lung area or reach deep in.
Think of a fly darting around in your living room without hitting the wall. The particulates are so small compared to the size of the lung area and are sent back out with the next breath.
The idea that the free market will always drive businesses to make the choice that is in their own best interest is a myth as far as the smoking issue is concerned. A lot of restaurant owners remain paralyzed with fear of losing business if they go smoke free. Over and over again the numbers have proven this to be false. They will frequently see a slight dip in business initially followed by a substantial increase in business when they go smoke free.
Sorry Ralph, Do you have ANY idea what the government (via the taxpayers) shell out to provide medical care to people with smoking related illnesses? Smoking kills about half a millon people in this country anually, most of whom die long, lingering, and VERY costly deaths. When someone chooses to smoke, their bad habit affects a lot more people than they often realize.
Being overweight is a bigger risk factor for short life span than smoking. Should we have to pay for this kind of self indulgence?
Dear Mary,
It’s pretty much a wash. The younger smokers die, the less we have to pay them in social security.
Oh sure, Medicare takes a little hit, but it all evens out as far as expense to the government.
Hank
Like i have said in the past… Its is in the financial interest of the government for people to die.
Yeah Mary, I understand quite well. So let’s ban all tanning, the rest of us don’t want to pay for all the health issues related to over exposure to the sun; hell, ban alcohol, look at all of the drunk driving, liver disease, social ills related to alcohol abuse, etc.; and while we’re talking about those kind of things, then let’s also ban hydrogenated fats and put limits on food portions. We’re an overweight society. The cost to society for overweight and unhealthy people is tremendous. We need to be healthy! And why we’re on all these limitations, let’s ban all left turns. By far and away the majority of traffic accidents involve left turns. Deaths, lost time to rehab, auto insurance. The cost!!!
Give me a break. Everyone is going to die of something. Everyone. At least, let people live their lives as they choose. If they engage in risky behavior, then up their insurance or whatever.
Good post. People are just way to busy trying to tell others how to live. There’s one steak house I go to, Town & Country that has building wide smoking. It’s always packed.
Town & Country is a great place to eat. I go there occasionally for breakfast.
The problem with this country is somehow we’ve gotten away from personal responsibility. There are too many people that somehow think that the “government” should be the social safety net to save us all from ourselves.
I remember an article written back in some British magazine claiming that the effects of smoking marijuana are actually safer for you than smoking cigarettes. The mag pulled the article a week or so from the issue.Shady… very shady
I don’t smoke but I’d be pissed if I had to stop doing something just because the Man tells you to do so. That’s why I think the only free places to go for smokers are those casinos on Native American reservations.
Restaurants and bars are not public buildings, they are private property and the owners of the business should have the sole authority in deciding whether to allow smoking or not. I don’t understand why that is such a hard concept for the anti smokers to grasp, if you don’t like smoke, don’t patronize that business.
Many people have no idea how much we pay into a system that does everything to keep people alive who are dying from self abuse. Maybe when the government says “enough is enough”, people will start taking more responsibility for their health or else they’ll die a lot sooner from lack of health care. Those who are irresponsible have been given a free ride from the taxpayers in this country for way too long. Maybe it’s time to start allowing people to experience the natural consequences of their bad choices.America is one of the few (if not the only) country where poor people are morbidly obese and addicted to cigarettes. Gee, I wonder how that happened? I’ve actually seen a woman buy cigarettes in a Quik Trip with her vision card. One of the biggest problems we have in this country is the death of common sense.
As Will Rogers said, “Common sense ain’t common.”
The govt. should require mandatory work outs, hey maybe that’s behind these high gas prices, the genius of Bush on display again!
Wow. 35 posts into a thread about smoking bans in Kansas, and somebody pops up to inform us he doesn’t like Bush.
Keep digging. There’s gotta be other threads in here that don’t mention the World’s #1 Terrorist.