Where there’s smoke there’s ire

I must not be Y2K
compatible or some-
thing because recent
new millennial events
are beyond my failing
20th century mind.

Take the current donny-
brook over smoking in pubs
for exampte.

To hear the side of the
smoke enthusiasts, you'd
think the Red Army had just
landed on the West Coast
and seized control of
Victoria.

With the supposed institu-
tion of new clean air legisla-
tion on Jan. 1, cries of “dicta-
torship” and other hysteria
whipped up by smokers and
pub owners have filled the
still fetid pub and bar air —
still fetid because some smok-
ess and some pub owners are
openly defying the legislation
which outlaws smoking in
pubs and bars. The law
brings those public establish-
ments in line with restau-
rants, which over the past
year have been required to
steadily reduce the amount of
area allocated for smoking.

But change is not easy to
swallow at any time, especial-
ly when it comes to smoking.

Bars and pubs are of
course the last bastions of
indoor public smoking.

’ ‘Their owners and some of

’ . their patrons argue that one

without the other is impracti-

cal, uathinkable and undemo-

cratic.
* - They warn of layoffs, fiscal
hardships and all-out industry
economic collapse if smoking
is snuffed cut.

Some will even trot out
cigarette industry propaganda
questioning the impact of
second-hand smoke.

- True to its blinkered out-
look and self-interest-driven
stand on what is a serious
health and fifestyle issue, the
BC Liquor Licensee and
Retailers Association (former-
ly the Neighbourhood Pub
Owners Association of BC)

_ has urged its membership to
openly defy the new legisla-
tion. .. ee

This even though the

impact of a smoking prohibi-
Gon on the industry's busi-
ness can hardly be deter-
mined — for better or for

yarns

worse — until it’s been in
place for at least nine
months.

In what is now a lose-lose
situation, smokers have been
lighting up as usual in B.C.
pubs and bars — infuriating
non-smokers, confusing pub
owners like those of North
Vancouver's Black Bear who
might want to comply, and
further alienating smokers
from the social mainstream.

The pub association pro-
fesses to be involved in some
kind of fight that gnaws at
the very foundations of
democracy.

But that’s'so much public
relations smoke and mirrors.

Theirs is a fight for market
share regardless of the health
costs it exacts from those
who work in the industry and
those who patronize its busi-
nesses.

Smoking is a deadly habit.

Those who would argue
otherwise are the owners of
malfunctioning minds.

Revelations at the tailend
of the 20th century have Big
Tobacco engaged in a
decades-long campaign to
deceive the public about the
dangers of smoking and the
seriousness of tobacco’s
addictive qualities.

And the impact on the
good fiscal and social health
of society wrought by tobac-
co use and its pedlars is stag-

- gering.

This has been said before
in the space but it bears
repeating: each year tobacco
use kills close to 6,000 peo-
ple in B.C.; acress Canada

- smoking-related illnesses

eliminate about 40,000
Canadians.

Tobacco smoke, with its
lethal cocktail of 4,000 chem-
icals ranging from carbon
monoxide to ammonia and
arsenic, promotes a host of
ailments you wouldn’t wish
upon your worst enemy —

cancer, heart attacks, stroke,
dorlic ancurysms, peptic
ulcers, inflammatory bowel
disease, Osteoporosis, pneu-
monia, bronchitis and asth-
ma.

Anti-smoking groups esti-
mate the total annual cost to
Canada from tobaceo use to
be close to $10 billion. ;

Still, in the minds of the
pub and bar owners associa-
tion, it’s a habit well worth
condoning and promoting.

After all, some of their
best customers are smokers;
some argue that most of their
best regular customers are
smokers.

That might be the case
right now. But here’s why,
pub and bar owners: non-
smokers don’t frequent your
businesses because they don’t
enjoy being forced to inhale
someone else's smoke just so
they can gargle an ale and
engage in some social inter-
course.

They also don’s enjoy hav-
ing to fumigate their clothing
after being in your establish-
ments to rid themselves of
the stink of tobacco.

And I'd wager that most
of the industry’s employees
don’t enjoy having to earn
their living in a workplace
that is bad for their long-
term health.

The argument that the
ban will inflict grave econom-
ic damage on the pub and
bar business is also full of
holes.

Feedback from places such
as California where similar
smoking prohibitions have
been instituted counters
those argumenis. Bar owners
report little if any loss in
business and instead report
reductions in staff illness and
absenteeism, improved work-
place environment and staff
morale and reduced fire haz-
ards.

The restaurant industry
trotted out the same argu-
ments as their pub counter-
parts when non-smoking reg-
ulations began to erode the
number of seats restaurants
could allocate to smokers.

But few would now lobby
for a return to the days when
smoke was one of the main
items on their menus.

The reality of the smoking
debate is that most people

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don't smoke and don’t want
their environment polluted
by smokers.

The majority has spoken.
Smoking is increasingly an
unacceptable social habit.
There’s no value in banning
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Government dithering,
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rent political leadership's
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The simple truth is: smok-
ers are a dying breed. In
more ways than one.

—trenshaw@nsnews,com

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