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SMOKING BAN FOR CIGARS PROPOSED AGAIN IN PHILADELPHIA
Smoking is once again under attack in Philadelphia. After a proposed ban stalled a year ago, city councilwoman Marian Tasco has introduced new legislation that would ban smoking in all Philadelphia workplaces, including restaurants and bars.
Cigar bars and tobacco stores would be exempt. Councilman Michael A. Nutter, a fervent antismoker, introduced the previous bill, which died as a result of fighting between Nutter and Mayor John F. Street, also a nonsmoker. The mayor conducted an online smoking poll, which was hotly debated by Nutter, who called it a "fraud," according to the Web site.
"The survey is pretty much a waste of time. I don't know why we would need such an instrument," said Nutter, according to PoliticsPhilly.com. "Practically everyone knows I favor some kind of ban," Street said in a radio address last August. "However, although I am a lifelong nonsmoker I do not believe I have a right to impose my personal view on the people of our city."
Nutter pledged his support for the new smoking ban, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer, and Street is apparently also in favor. "We were for a ban on smoking in public places, and we still are for a ban on smoking in public places," said Joe Grace, the mayor's spokesman, in the Inquirer article. Philadelphia is one of the few major areas in the East without a smoking ban.
Smoking has been banned in neighboring New Jersey, New York and Boston and will soon be severely restricted in Washington, D.C.
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