What a drag for county smokers

Daily Southtown

March 14, 2006

By Gregg Sherrard Blesch

Jack Studebaker, a patron at Tinley Park's Cottage Bar & Grill on Monday afternoon, drew a Basic from his pack and lit up.

Unbeknown to him — and, it appears, most of the universe — Cook County commissioners were moving quickly and quietly toward a countywide smoking ban.

Unlike Chicago's version, it would immediately include bars and taverns.

In two months, Studebaker and his fellow smokers would be barred from lighting up at the Cottage or anywhere else in Cook County outside of Chicago.

"Watch us," he said, releasing the first drag. "It'll never happen."

But it looks like it will happen, and soon.

The board's health and hospitals committee, which includes all 17 commissioners — 13 of them present — approved the ordinance Monday in a voice vote without opposition.

The commissioners are set for a final vote Wednesday.

The ordinance, introduced in December amid rancorous public debate over Chicago's ban, would be effective 60 days later and would apply in any town that doesn't have its own smoking ordinance.

Commissioner Mike Quigley, (D-Chicago) who introduced the ban in December, called Monday's vote "a major victory for people's health and clean air."

He expected the ban to be a done deal Wednesday.

The ordinance has the support of board President John Stroger, who was absent, as well as Stroger's primary opponent, Forrest Claypool.

If the ban passes, the Department of Public Health will launch an education campaign to make it happen, Quigley said.

Smokers who violate the ordinance would be fined $100. Establishments failing to enforce it would face fines escalating from $100 to $2,500 and suspension of permits and licenses.

"We'll sit down with the municipalities and talk about how we're going to enforce this together," Quigley said. "They can keep the revenue, so I think some of them will hop right on."

Maybe, but the whole thing will be news to most of them, said Ed Paesel, executive director of the South Suburban Mayors and Managers Association.

"It seems almost like they don't want to hear what communities would have to say about it," Paesel said.

Southland towns, he said, stand to lose more than those in the middle of the county, losing business to Will County and Northwest Indiana.

The ban comes on the heels of another decision that critics said would drive smokers to spend their money elsewhere. As of March 1, the county doubled its cigarette tax from $1 to $2 a pack.

Oak Lawn Mayor Dave Heilman said he didn't know the county was anywhere near passing a ban that would affect his village.

"Wow, OK," Heilmann said. "I guess I would have liked to have discussion with our residents on this."

Any town with its own smoking ordinance would be exempt from the county's rules.

And towns would be free to adopt a less restrictive policy to duck the county's move, Quigley conceded.

"It's sad but true, and if they do, I'm going to out them," Quigley said. "I'm going to tell people that they're selling death."

The commissioners voted before inviting public comment, for or against.

But no one was there to fight it, anyway.

Several speakers had signed up to support the ban, including Diana Hackbarth, chairwoman of the Illinois Coalition Against Tobacco.

The lack of opposition, she said after the meeting, was a sign that the tide had turned in the battle against second-hand smoke.

"I think it shows public opinion is clearly on the side of smoke-free places," Hackbarth said.

Or it may be a sign that the opponents weren't watching.

Missing in action was the Illinois Restaurant Association, which fought hard against the Chicago smoking ordinance.

"From what we understand, the legislation mirrors Chicago's ordinance," Andrew Ariens, a spokesman for the industry group, said in a phone interview.

The restaurant industry won a compromise in Chicago granting a two-year grace period for bars and restaurants with attached bars.

Ariens was surprised to learned there's no such break in the county's proposal.

"We would have to oppose it," he said. "Hopefully we can work out a compromise to make it similar to (Chicago's)."

Commissioner Larry Suffredin (D-Evanston), a longtime lobbyist and attorney for the restaurant association, has said he would stay out of the smoking debate and votes.

Suffredin was present but silent during the meeting.

Copyright 2006, Daily Southtown

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