Palmer Proposition 3 understand what it does

To the editor:

In the course of a day, we might visit many places that could be considered public. We go to the post office for our mail; to the Division of Motor Vehicles to renew a driver’s license; to the City Hall, Matanuska Electric Association, or Matanuska Telephone Association to pay our utility bills; to many of the Mat-Su Borough buildings or our school district schools; or to any one of the other state agency building located within our fine city.

There is good reason to prohibit smoking in these places because we must go to these places to conduct certain business, and we should not be forced to breathe secondhand smoke when we do. These are offices and agencies of the government, local utilities and schools and are meant to be for the use of all citizens. By the way, all of these places already ban smoking inside of their facilities, without Palmer Proposition 3.

Now take a look at places that people go to by choice — restaurants, bars, and a huge variety of other retail and service businesses. Restaurants, grocery stores, and almost all other businesses in Palmer already do not allow smoking. Remember private property owners can and do enforce all kinds of policy on their properties. ”No Smoking” “No-Shirt, No-Shoes, No Service” ”Ties and Jackets Required” “No Profanity.” These are by choice of either the business owner or the property owner, without Palmer Proposition 3.

We currently have two full-service bars downtown that are non-smoking. We also have three full service bars that allow smoking. Coincidently, all three that allow smoking are located side by side, and all three are standalone bars meaning they derive the majority of business income on the activity of alcohol sales. The two non-smoking bars have hotels and full-service restaurants attached to them. The choice at this point belongs to the consumer and any potential service industry employee and not the “Nanny State Government Mentality” of Palmer Proposition 3.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated smokers in 2012 as 19.3 percent of the U.S. population, roughly 45.3 million people. Let’s bring it into perspective, Alaska with the population being approximately 722,718 that’s 139,484 smokers. Like it or not, those smokers still represent a large number of potential customers that Proposition 3 will cut out of our local Palmer economy. When smoking is disallowed everywhere in “public,” roughly a fifth of the population, although choosing to participate in an activity which is legal, is prohibited from engaging in that activity in almost every place except at home.

With the current financial situation our country and individual local businesses are experiencing, blanket restriction of business on the criteria of smoking seems illogical and especially unfair to the few small business owners who are catering to the smokers when there are currently other non-smoking options available for a potential patron to choose from.

I have a better and more reasonable idea. Vote no on Palmer Proposition 3! Then pass an ordinance that would require the few businesses that allow smoking in their facilities to install large signs at the entry points to their businesses indicating that they are a smoking establishment. This would certainly inform anyone who might want to patronize or work for these businesses that they are a smoking establishment. Remember these businesses also contain the smoke and the smokers inside the premise where the air can be filtered before it is exhausted out of the building, as it is now.

Palmer Proposition 3 requires that smoking will only be allowed outside in the “public” areas as defined by this proposition like the sidewalks or designated areas. Not even allowing smoke shacks like the Anchorage law allows. This language does not allow a structure of two or more sides to be smoked in. Is this truly what the smoke-free Palmer folks intended? Smokers will be out on the sidewalks of Palmer if the Palmer Proposition 3 passes. Vote no on Palmer Proposition 3.

Richard Best

Palmer