By Steve Burgess
Contributing Writer

OPEN up a newspaper
lately, and smoke gets
in your eyes.

Issues both local and
national have recently cen-
tred on tobacco. To adver-
tise, or not to advertise; to
allow tobacco sponsorship of
the arts, or not; to smoke in

” restaurants, or to butt out;
to quit smoking, or to go on
filling your lungs with
enough tar to roof a condo.
Tough decisions, all right.

T worry that a ban on
tobacco advertising could
have a devastating impact on
local entertainment.

For example, just last
week I was tremendously
entertained by a cigarette
advertisement. It ran ina
Lower Mainland community
newspaper, promoting a new
type of filter on a particular
cigarette brand. According
to the ad, this filter featured
a filtering breakthrough:
actual grains of wheat.

Just imagine: the good-
ness of wheat, every time
you smoke. I did, and J con-
fess I began to reconsider my
rash decision to avoid smok-
ing.

Could I be missing out
on the benefits of wheat?
And how long would it be
before new filters arrive, con-
taining calcium or perhaps
riboflavin?

Real, golden wheat.
That’s just got to be good
for you. Throw in a pair of
lungs that look like beef
jerky, and you’ve almost got
a balanced meal.

As entertaining and infor-
mative as such ads are, they
are only part of the fun,

Tobacco money helps to
support the art of dance,
too. Some of the most inno-

McPherson
Insurance Agencies Ltd.

Sing!
While you drive...

Ac 80 km per hour -
“Highways Are Happy Ways”
At 90 km per hour --

“din But A Stranger Here,
Heaven Is My Home”

Ac 110 kay per hour ~
“Nearer My Gud To Thee”
Ac 125 km per hour -
“When The Roll ls Called Up
Yonder, Tl Be There”

At 140 km per hour —
“Lord, [in Coming Heme”

At 165 km per hour -

Phone the Undertaker
(first published 1972)

Serving you since 1952
108 East 14th St., N.Van.
985-3185

Have a Safe &
Happy Holiday

vative dancing you will ever
see invelves art and cultural
organizations wriggling and
twisting, as they attempt to
justify accepting money trom
the makers of a product
which has claimed more vic-
tims than Raid.

Here on the North
Shore, another dance goes
on, as well-meaning civic
officials attempt to come to
grips with the tobacco prob-
lem, particularly second-
hand smoke. (As cartoonist
Joe Martin said of second-
hand smoke: “It’s not the
bargain it sounds like.”)

Cigarettes are like nuclear
bombs: they’re weapons of
mass destruction, and we will
never be rid of them.

Of course, Vancouver and
Squamish did put up signs at
the city limits, reading “This
is a nuclear-free zone,”
which was a perfectly simple
solution.

Asking restaurants to set
aside 70% of their space as
nuclear-free, leaving 30% for
the use of 50-megaton
explosives, did not seem nec-
essary.

It may be that the decep-
tive case of that legislative
experience misled North
Vancouver District. The
original district smoking
bylaw would have banned
smoking in all public places.

CE

Just as Squamish nuke-
fiends were forced to go cold
turkey, North Vancouver
District would take the
smokes right out of grateful
citizens’ nicotine-stained fin-
gers. The crucial difference
here is that, unlike cigarettes,
thermonuclear devices play
no role in people’s dunch
hours.

Faced with opposition
from North Vancouver City
and West Vancouver, the dis-
trict had to back down.

A number of compromis-
es have been discussed, some
with progressively more
onerous restrictions phased
in over time. Eventually, it
may be that restaurants will
only be allowed smoking sec-
tions if they are separate,
well-ventilated, and com-
pletely underwater.

Iris down here in the
trenches that the war against
smoking appears unwinnable,
doomed by history.

Once we allowed Joe
Camel to get his nose in the
tent, there was no getting rid
of him. Short of passing a
law that requires every smok-
er to wear a white polyester
leisure suit with matching
shoes, there’s nothing we
can do to stamp it our com-
pletely.

Besides, it is unlikely that
politicians will ever com-
pletely eliminate smoke. It’s
not in their best interests.
Think about it: first smoke
goes, then somebody wants
to ban mirrors. And we'd
never see another balanced
budget.

— The North Shore News
believes strongly in freedem of
speech and the right of all
sides in a debate to be beard.
The columnists published in
the News present differing
points of view, but those views
are not necessarily those of the
newspaper itself.

. PARK'S

Sunday, December 15, 1996 — North Shore News — 9

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