Our View: Extend ‘no smoking’ to Lakewalk, all parks
September 3, 2012 at 7:00 pm in Duluth News Tribune
City policy already snuffs cigs in Duluth’s parks. So an ordinance to ban smoking along the Lakewalk and its adjacent splashes of green?
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The only stench is coming from the editorial board of the News Tribune. It’s one thing to have a rabid obsession with an issue, but it’s another to blatantly lie to your readers. Then again, you’ve been lying since the beginning on the issue of smoking bans in Duluth.
But you could prove me wrong: Publish a study that shows that in an outdoor area as large as the Lakewalk, someone on one end will be physically harmed by someone on the other end who’s enjoying a cigarette. I assume there is one because the only justification for making the ridiculous claims you make is that you have scientific proof to back it up. So put up, shut up or admit that you’ll stoop to any level to win favor for a position that most Duluthians do not support.
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Why not just outlaw cigarettes altogether? And let’s ban alcohol too! Zero tolerance! Clearly the War on Drugs is working well.
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The DNT needs to realize that DULLUTH will never be that pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. How can you expect the 20 or 25% of the people that smoke pay for things that they aren’t allowed to use? Fine, go ahead and ban, then give people that smoke a credit on their taxes.
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Where are all of these people getting second-hand smoke? If the city was REALLY concerned about health, the concession stands would be the items to take out. All you do in pushing around smokers who are already outside is make it more likely that people will litter, hang out in other parking lots, and create new problems.
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The folks at the DNT need more to do…..this is totally ridiculous. Is the DNT going to make up for the difference in taxes this going to need to support enough extra police officers AND to also pay for their benefits, in trying to enforce this…..because their total costs would far exceed the amount taken in… in the way of fine money! Probably lead to even more people leaving town…..further exacurbating Duluth’ financial plight!
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Despite years of misinformation, hysterical claims, irrational distortions and outright lies by antismoker extremists and lazy, unethical media like the News Tribune, most people with common sense understand and most scientists know that smoke from a cigarette is not much different than smoke from campfires, fireplaces, bonfires, incense, candles, cooking, meat on a barbecue, gasoline and on and on. Yet I didn’t see the News Tribune or the city council advocate a ban on outdoor cooking at the recent Pride festival (or its bonfire) or the Labor Day picnic or Blues Fest or Spirit Valley Days. I missed their call to ban barbecuing within city limits. No ban on gas stations. No ban on the sale or use of incense or candles. No ban on fireplaces in restaurants other public places.
If they want people to believe they’re concerned with everybody’s health, which is nonsense, why not get it all done at once and ban sunbathing, motorcycles, any sort of extreme sports, obese people (there goes the editorial board and most local antismoker activists), those who don’t exercise and anyone who consumes alcohol? Why the single-issue obsession with cigarette smoke and a ban that they know won’t be enforced?
The antismoker witchhunt is over, even if the News Tribune and city council hadn’t noticed. It’s been over for years now, ever since the Robert Woods Johnson Foundation (of Johnson & Johnson pharmaceutical fame) chose to end its funding for smoking bans and instead focus on fat people. Notice how suddenly you started hearing about the “epidemic” of obesity when you stopped hearing about smoking bans? That’s not coincidence. And why were they funding the antismoker witchhunt? Guess who makes smoking cessation products like nicotine patches and nicotine gum? Gee, it’s pharmaceutical companies like Johnson & Johnson, which puts them in direct competition with tobacco companies.
Jim Stauber needs something better to waste the city council’s time on. And unless he or the News Tribune can produce a study that shows that smoking outdoors presents any kind of health risk to anybody besides those doing the smoking, this is nothing more than irrational paternalism completely out of proportion to what he thinks is a problem. And if the News Tribune can do no better than to copy and paste the propaganda spoon-fed to them by antismoker groups, they continue to fail their readers.
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The DNT article also noted that NO SIGNIFICANT ECONOMICAL changes have occured in the tavern industry…..excuse me……all the taverns in Duluth have said their business is down significantly…..since the smoking ban in the taverns started……ALSO, prior to the ban…..the anti-smolking folks said that the tavern business would INCREASE as a result…..and as you all can see…..that was ONLY a sales pitch for the ban! Like a lot of folks said……what are the anti-smolking folks…….smoking? Personally, I do not smoke….so I do not have a dog in this fight….so, I do not have a ulterior motive or agenda here! So folks….PLEASE give some thought to some of these things the DNT pushes….as they are in true lock-step with Liberals….in most of these “better for the overall general public”……cop-outs that these people endorse!
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