The Perfect Strom

YES!

Smoking would be banned in all enclosed workplaces in Springfield under an ordinance Ward 10 Ald. Bruce Strom said Thursday that he will introduce sometime this summer.

Strom said he is pushing the ordinance and that Ward 8 Ald. Irv Smith will co-sponsor it. Strom said the ordinance has not yet been drafted, but he hopes to introduce it sometime this summer.

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The council does not yet have the power to ban smoking, but it will if Gov. Rod Blagojevich signs a bill that would give local governments the power to regulate smoking. The governor has not yet indicated his position.

Strom said his ordinance would be written to go into effect the date the state legislation would take effect, Jan. 1.

[snip]

Right now, the prospects for passage of such an ordinance in Springfield appear bleak.

Four Springfield aldermen have already indicated they are not likely to vote for the ordinance: Ward 1 Ald. Frank Edwards, Ward 2 Ald. Frank McNeil, Ward 3 Ald. Frank Kunz and Ward 4 Ald. Chuck Redpath.

Three aldermen, Ward 5 Ald. Joe Bartolomucci, Ward 6 Ald. Mark Mahoney and Ward 7 Ald. Judy Yeager, have indicated varying degrees of willingness to consider a ban.

Ward 9 Ald. Tom Selinger has said he will not take a position until Blagojevich acts.

If Bartolomucci, Mahoney and Yeager joined Smith and Strom in voting for the ordinance and Selinger voted against it, the council would be tied 5-5. It would fall to Mayor Tim Davlin to break the tie.

At a news conference on an unrelated matter, Davlin said he would oppose the ordinance.

"I've said for a long, long time ... that I think it should be up to the individual businesses. Those that don't want to have smoking there should certainly cater to the nonsmokers," Davlin said. "It should always be a business decision.

"We're starting to meddle in somebody's business that we have no right to do. I think we should do what we can, those of us who are nonsmokers, to promote those places that are nonsmoking."

Unfortunately, Davlin has a bit of a conflict of interest here. His brother, Kevin, owns a couple of bars in town. Because of this, I think he's too sympathetic to the fears of restaurant and bar owners. Fears that are baseless, by the way. Whole states have adopted similar legislation and business is doing just fine.

I plan to whole-heartedly support Strom's proposal from my little forum here. This is a pet cause of mine (see here and here and here) so I don't plan on letting go of it anytime soon.