OUR VIEW: Council must now close the deal on ban

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March 21, 2010

Staff report Glasgow Daily Times The Glasgow Daily Times Sun Mar 21, 2010, 04:12 AM CDT

GLASGOW — The Glasgow City Council finally made the right move of putting an ordinance banning smoking in restaurants and other places where the public can gather to a vote.

The ordinance passed on first reading, but only after Mayor Darrell Pickett cast the tie-breaking vote because the council had deadlocked at six votes for and six votes against the ordinance.

Monday night, the council members need to close the deal by passing the ordinance on second reading.

We have previously pointed out the council bypassed making a tough decision during an election year when the members voted 6-5 to table the ordinance in May of 2008. Some members of that council no longer have their seats.

We give the members of this council credit for at least tackling some politically hot issues during this election year. We understand some believe they are following the directives of their constituents when they vote against this version of the smoking ban. But they also have a responsibility to the greater good.

An editorial in the Daily Times in October of 2008 gave the facts at the time: “The science is clear.

The public health impact is clear.

The economics of health care for smokers and second-hand smokers is clear.

Kentucky leads the nation in some devastating statistics chronicling one heart-breaking story after another. As a community and a society we’ve grown up as producers and as consumers of tobacco. Our smoking rates are off the chart. Fully one-third of Barren Countians smoke. One in four pregnant women in the BRADD district still smoke. A fourth of our high school kids smoke.

According to the American Cancer Society, 53,000 non-smokers die each year from issues related to or complicated by secondhand smoke. Said a better way by the ACS: For every eight smokers who die, they take out one non-smoker with them.

We can do better.”

The only thing that has changed in those numbers is that they have grown worse.

From our view, though, the sentiment remains the same. We can do better and we fully expect all of our council members to make the right decision for the greater good of the community and vote in favor of the smoking ban on Monday night.

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