This week's issue of
The Oher Paper,a weekly paper from Columbus, Ohio, has a brilliant dissection of a
less-than-honest trick that Big Tobacco has poured money into in order to make it impossible for the state to ever have any kind of worthwhile public smoking restrictions ever agaim . But before we get to the meat of the issue, allow me to opine.
I like smokeless bars and restaraunts. A lot. That wasn't always the case. I, like many others, believed that bars and smoke were like peanut butter and jelly, Hope and Crosby, the Cubs and losing, i.e. two things that went well together and no one seemed to mind (fyi, The Cubs outdrew their world champion copunterparts this year despite having one of their more miserable seasons to date!). That is until California passed its own ligestlations that eliminated smoking from public places. After visiting that state and hitting some of the local nightlife I came away converted. Not only did I NOT smell like an ashtray, but my clothes were not crying for the dry cleaners and I no longer felt that bad for the many bartenders and waitresses who had to suffer through hours upon hours of second hand smoke. Soon my own town of Columbus passed legislation eliminating smoking from restaraunts and bars. Although many of these places claimed that we would see a widespread collapse in the restaraunt industry, nothing of the sort has happened. Bars continue to pour alcohol, people still need to eat. While some customers hit the burbs to smoke, local university spots like the Blue Danube or Dick's Den still thrive and smokers still hit the bars. The difference now is they bitch a little as they go outside to smoke and we, who don't, can still enjoy music and pints. However, all of this could end if Issue 4 passes.
I wouldn't be so against it if it Issue 4 just came out and said that this would be a vote to ALLOW smoking in bars and restaurants. However, this isn't the case.
Talking on the phone from his car Monday with a sandwich in one hand and the steering wheel in another, Jacob Evans somehow managed to stay on message.
Evans, vice president of governmental affairs for PR firm the Craig Group, is the media spokesman for State Issue 4, one of two statewide smoking bans on the Nov. 7 ballot.
Voters will have the option of supporting Issue 4 or Issue 5, the competing statewide smoking ban. Or they could vote for both of them, which would suit Evans just fine.
"Ohioans do want some sort of a smoking policy," Evans said between bites of his lunch, keeping his eyes on the road. "I think the proposals are not all that different."
Voters don't seem to think so, either.
According to a Columbus Dispatch poll published Sept. 24, Issue 4 is winning 55-38 and Issue 5 is up 58-34. That means some voters--and probably a lot of them--plan to vote for both.
If they do, they stand to be unpleasantly surprised at the result.
Issue 5, which is backed by a group called "SmokeFreeOhio" and endorsed by public-health advocates, would bring the rest of Ohio in line with the Columbus indoor-smoking ban passed by City Council in 2004. Smoking would be prohibited in almost all public indoor spaces, including bars, restaurants, entertainment venues and office buildings.
Issue 4, which is called "Smoke Less Ohio" and backed by the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co.--the folks behind the Joe Camel cartoon character--would render Issue 5 null and void.
Not only would "Smoke Less" allow people to smoke much more in Columbus, but as a constitutional amendment, Issue 4 would supersede Issue 5, which is simply a law.
In other words, if both issues are approved, Ohio's statewide smoking ban will be nullified on the very day the voters enact it.
Oh, but this legislation takes deceptive PR to a new high, or low, depending on your perspective.
not only does the campaign organization shamelessly call itself "Smoke Less Ohio," but the Ohio secretary of state's office approved ballot language that presents Issue 4 as a smoking ban. It begins with the sentence, "This proposed amendment would prohibit smoking in enclosed areas except...."
Except a whole lot of places: bars, bowling alleys, bingo halls, tobacco shops and restaurants that make 40 percent of their profit from alcohol sales.
So isn't it weird to call Issue 4 a smoking ban when--particularly in municipalities where public-smoking curbs exist--it's just the opposite?
"I don't think it's weird at all," Evans said. "The fact of the matter is, Ohio does not have a smoking policy."
Yeah, that is true. So who is it that wants to help us get our policies in line? You guessed it... Joe Camel, The Marlboro Man and all of those foxy Virginia Slim babes are here to the rescue
less smoking is not the goal of Smoke Less Ohio. Any confusion about that can be cleared up when reading the organization's list of "coalition members" at smokelessohio.com.
In addition to R.J. Reynolds and other organizations, Issue 4 is supported by the Cigar Association of America, the Lorillard Tobacco Co., the National Association of Tobacco Outlets Inc. and the Retail Tobacco Dealers Association.
R.J. Reynolds is bankrolling pro-smoking efforts in other states this year, including Arizona, where the campaign brazenly calls itself the Arizona Non-Smoker Protection Committee.
NBC News did a story on the inherent dishonesty of the Ohio and Arizona efforts, noting that Smoke Less Ohio petitioners did not disclose the fact that their issue was being promoted by the tobacco industry.
NBC used a hidden camera to catch an Arizona petitioner trying to trick a voter into signing the Non-Smoker Protection Act petition and quoted another petition circulator conceding that the campaign was executing a "political ploy."
NBC didn't use any hidden cameras in Ohio, where Smoke Less Ohio gathered the 114,517 signatures needed to qualify Issue 4 for the ballot.
Evans said his group's petitioners were instructed to say something like, "I'm representing Smoke Less Ohio. We're looking to put a smoking ban on the ballot. Here's what it would do."
If you don't like breathing other people's smoke and you don't have the cross-examination skills of a prosecuting attorney, chances are you'd have signed the petition after hearing the words "smoke less" and "smoking ban."
In the voting booth, smoking-ban advocates might be inclined to vote for it after they see the beginning of its description on the ballot. It isn't until the second sentence that you learn the true intent of Issue 4's backers:
"The amendment would invalidate retroactively any ordinance or local law in effect, and would prohibit the future adoption of any ordinance or local law to the extent such ordinance or law prohibited smoking or tobacco products in anyplace exempted by the amendment."
So what to do? How about spreading the word throughout all of Ohio... callling up your local radio shows and telling your friends to Vote NO on 4 if for no other reason that this is red-handed deception, nothing more nothing less.