Smoking ban returns to council

PALMER — If you’re still interested in finding out whether city bars will be required to go smoke-free, tonight’s the night.

The City Council was set to meet at 7 p.m. to debate and decide how to proceed with the controversial ordinance, which has shown up on council agendas twice before over the course of the summer.

Palmer Mayor DeLena Johnson said she’s not sure what to expect. The council has already taken public testimony so the crowd probably won’t be as large as it was Sept. 13, when attendees overflowed into the entryways of the council chambers. But every meeting includes a chance to address the council so maybe it’ll be just as big, she said.

“Smoking is something that people, they consider it a personal issue,” Johnson said. People tend to get passionate about personal issues, she said, so, “obviously personal issues tend to be something that brings out people for comment.”

She said this ordinance has drawn bigger crowds than anything the council has discussed in her short tenure as mayor.

Opinions on the matter run the gamut.

The city’s bar owners are pretty well unified in worrying about a drop in business and chafing at the idea of the city making what owners consider to be business decisions that should be left up to the private sector.

Owners of bars outside of city limits who have voluntarily gone smoke-free have told the city council that the decision has had no appreciable effect on their businesses and might have even increased revenues.

As for those outside the business community, smokers spoke for and against the measure, as did non-smokers. Most who oppose the ban say smoking is a personal decision and the decision to allow it in indoors to be a business’ prerogative.

Those in favor of it say smoking is a public health issue and second-hand smoke is an unacceptable risk. Some said they would start going to city bars again if smokers had to take their habit outside.

At any rate, Johnson said that the council actually has three options; enact the ordinance, reject it, or let voters decide. Given her druthers, she’d choose option three, she said.

“I think at this point it’d be a good thing to let people vote on it,” Johnson said. “This is a personal issue that goes to the heart of the community and what does the community want to see done?”

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.