The Chicago Delegation to the Illinios General Assembly Wants to Ban Everything

[Jeff White]

What do they put in the water up there? First it's the usual Daley assault on the second amendment:
http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=179799

Then they want to ban anything that looks like a military weapon:

http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=180333

Now a few months after passing a law giving all communities the right to ban smoking in public, we get a bill to just go ahead and ban it state wide:
http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/ne...A5ACF9B4197851AE8625710F001F718D?OpenDocument

Illinois may take back smoking decision
By Kevin McDermott
POST-DISPATCH SPRINGFIELD BUREAU
02/07/2006

SPRINGFIELD, ILL.

Illinois legislators re-lit on Tuesday the debate over public smoking, advancing a measure to ban cigarettes in Illinois restaurants and other public places - barely a month after granting local communities the power to decide the issue for themselves.

"It's our responsibility to protect the whole state. . . . We cannot ignore the fact that lives continue to be lost due to secondhand smoke," said state Rep. Annazette Collins, D-Chicago.

Collins' statewide smoking-ban bill won a House committee vote Tuesday night, even as communities around Illinois ponder whether to take advantage of the new state law giving local governments authority to institute their own bans.

That law, which went into effect Jan. 1, would be superseded by the new measure, if it wins approval from the House, Senate and Gov. Rod Blagojevich.

The bill would phase in, over two years, a mandatory, near-total ban of all smoking in restaurants, bars, bowling alleys, casino riverboats and all other indoor public places. The smoking ban also would apply to a 15-foot radius outside the entrances of such places.

The new smoking-ban push Tuesday immediately tipped the fragile truce that smoking and anti-smoking forces reached last year, with the passage of the law that put the issue in the hands of local communities.

"You folks have placed your faith in local government officials, and you're not giving it time to work," Steve Riedel, executive director of the Illinois Licensed Beverage Association, told the House Health Care Availability and Access committee Tuesday.

Since the earlier law went into effect allowing local bans, Chicago and Springfield have enacted such ordinances. Several other communities have considered and rejected them, and others are still under debate.

The new local power has been almost completely ignored in Southern Illinois and the Metro East area.

"Downstate Illinois is against (mandatory) smoking bans. The rest of the state has very little interest in instituting smoking bans," said Garnet Dawn, Midwest director for the Smokers Club Inc., a national smokers' rights group.

She said the fact that so few Illinois communities had used their new smoking-ban powers was the best indication available that a mandatory statewide ban would go against the wishes of most Illinoisans. State legislators "are ignoring what the communities want," she said.

Anti-smoking advocates say it's a public health issue, and as such shouldn't be left to the whims of local politics to decide which restaurant employees and patrons are protected and which aren't.

By some estimates, second-hand smoke kills 50,000 Americans a year. Tuesday's committee hearing included emotional testimony about lung-cancer patients who never smoked but apparently developed the disease from their workplaces.

"Too many non-smokers are forced to cope," said Dr. Craig Backs, president of the Illinois State Medical Society, who appeared at a news conference supporting the new legislation. "Unless we make Illinois completely smoke-free, a large number of Illinoisans remain at risk."

But others say the debate has strayed from just health issues into debates over local autonomy and personal choice.

The view appeared to be supported by the scene Tuesday at the Stagger Inn in downtown Edwardsville, where a table of four men - all non-smokers - put up with the smoke smell of the place to keep their weekly lunch gathering. All agreed they would not support a statewide ban, saying individual businesses should decide whether to allow smoking.

"I think a lot of people wouldn't like it," said Patty Hughes, a non-smoker who manages the bar and restaurant.

For communities such as Collinsville, which hasn't yet debated a local ban, a statewide ban would have the potentially convenient effect of taking local politicians off the hot seat.

"Someone else making the decision is always good," joked Mayor Stan Schaeffer.

But Schaeffer said area residents - even non-smokers such as himself -would probably have philosophical problems with it. "I would think they would believe the decision shouldn't be taken away from the local community," he said.

Other opponents include the casino riverboat industry, which estimates that it could lose 20 percent of its business if boats such as the Casino Queen of East St. Louis had to go smokeless, and lost customers to Missouri boats.

The bill passed the committee 6-4 with one voting present, and now goes to the full House.

The bill is HB4338.

Leah Thorsen of the Post-Dispatch staff contributed to this story.

Ok, I don't smoke, I never have. But this is a freedom issue. Why is it the government's business? I don't like being in smoke filled environments, so I don't patronize them. If a businessman wants my patronage, he either has a smoking area away from the area I'm going to use, or he has a nice ventilation system that makes it not noticable. That's the way it's supposed to be, let the market decide. It's none of the government's business.

What's next for the Chicago delegation, a restart of prohibition so the graft money will flow to them even faster then it does now?

Oh, I forgot about the bill to raise the driving age, because some teenagers were killed in a traffic accident where they already had broken the graduated drivers license law and the curfew law ( a person under 17's drivers license isn't valid after the curfew (11pm Sun-Thur, 12am Fri-Sat). Yeah that's the ticket, let's just pass another law to keep that from happening, so in the news articles we can say the poor teenagers broke three laws instead of two...:banghead:

Where do you guys in Chicagoland find these people?

Jeff

 

[AStone]

Ok, I don't smoke, I never have. But this is a freedom issue. Why is it the government's business? I don't like being in smoke filled environments, so I don't patronize them. If a businessman wants my patronage, he either has a smoking area away from the area I'm going to use, or he has a nice ventilation system that makes it not noticable. That's the way it's supposed to be, let the market decide. It's none of the government's business.

Well said.

Interesting topic.

I look forward to reading
what's written here in response.

Nem

 

[El Tejon]

I would like to ban Chicago, or at least the Daley Administration.:banghead:

 

[foghornl]

Peoples Demokratik Republik of Chikago, ILL needs to be banned....and exiled to the middle of The Lake (Lake Michigan I never remember which GL is where)

 

[scout26]

I think my father said it best.

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[DonP]

Daley = Louis XV?

"Le Etat Cest Mois"

"I am the State"

I think it was Louis the XV used that line when he replied to an assemblyman that told him the government was upset with his recent laws.

Daley and Chicago, like Louis, make the arrogant mistake of thinking they are the government, or in this case, the state of Illinois.

The only thing that matters to them is what is good for their little fiefdoms of 50 wards in "the City that stopped working and started paying" years ago.

"We don't like guns so you can't have guns, we have crappy schools so you have to send your tax dollars from downstate to bail out our corrupt system every year. If you have to cancel school band oir athletic programs that's too bad, we have teacher contracts and a top heavy adminsitration to keep paying. Just shut up and write your checks."

 

[El Tejon]

Don, I think that quotation is attributed to Louie the 14th.

Although if he was French one would think, "I surrender the state" would be more appropriate.

 

[Baba Louie]

"The more corrupt the State, the more numerous the laws."
-- Cornelius Tacitus - "Annals" (c. 116 A.D.)

The above quote and many many more relevant thoughts found in the link below

http://www.valkyriearms.com/quotes.txt

 

[BigRobT]

Jeff, I wish more non-smokers saw things as clearly as you. I smoke and the Minneapolis metro area has gone non-smoking. As evidenced in a thread on another board, second-hand smoke dangers are very debateable. However, the power should reside in the proprietorship, NOT the Government. Even when I go out to eat, I sometimes don't like smoke drifting in my face. Most of this could be remedied very easily with proper ventilation, etc. Why not let them do it??

 

[Standing Wolf]

It's our responsibility to protect the whole state.

Stalin surely would have approved.

 

[Bruce H]

How many No. 3 washtubs,
how many pallets of sackcrete,
how big of a boat for a tour of lake Michigan?

 

[Huntzman]

Hmmmm.. where are they from ???

"It's our responsibility to protect the whole state. . . . " said state Rep. Annazette Collins, D-Chicago."

This must be an urban politcial condition:

Chicago
NYC
Philadelphia
DC
Los Angeles

Pass ineffectual laws to "protect the people from themselves..."

What we need to do is remind the politicians that they work for US !!! I think a few have become a little too complacent in their job security.

 

[caduckgunner]

Soon you'll be flying the Peoples Republik of Kali????ya's state flag.

 

[Soybomb]

Soon you'll be flying the Peoples Republik of Kali????ya's state flag.

I've always wanted to see if I could get prosecuted under illinois flag burning felony laws.

 

[Old NFO]

Ok, I don't smoke, I never have. But this is a freedom issue. Why is it the government's business? I don't like being in smoke filled environments, so I don't patronize them. If a businessman wants my patronage, he either has a smoking area away from the area I'm going to use, or he has a nice ventilation system that makes it not noticable. That's the way it's supposed to be, let the market decide. It's none of the government's business.

Good point Jeff, as a smoker I have always tried to respect non-smokers in any location; but by the same token, I should not have the priviledge of smoking decided by a faceless government "for the children". I too, chose to patronize based on my freedom of choice, which is "one" of the reasons I left Kali in 1998. Matter of fact, we "celebrated" the smoking ban in the bar at the Hotel California in Fullerton by lighting up cigars that night in the "former" smoking section I know of a number of very nice bars/restaurants in Kali that closed as a result of the loss of business after the smoking ban. The latest one I personally know of is the Padres Pub at the Hilton in San Diego- That bar was iconic for the Padres, with many historic items, jerseys, etc. from various players. Business had continued to drop after the ban to the point that the Hilton decided last year to close the bar completely and convert it to a restaurant. :banghead: :banghead:

 

[Lupinus]

I don't smoke but my mother does and IMO smoking is a right, it is your body you should be able to do what you want to it, and while being subjected constantly to second hand smoke isn't good for you being around it on occasion in an area that has a good ventalation system isn't likly to give you cancer. I'm no doctor but that is my opinion. And it is your right as a buisness owner to decide if you want to allow smokers in your place of buisness. Make seperate smoking and non-smoking sections, put in a decent ventalation system, and that should be the end of it.

Here in florida there is a ban of smoking in resturants and from all acounts I've heard all it has done is serve to hurt buisness because the smokers stay home or go places they can smoke, and non-smokers aren't coming in anymore then they had been before. There is a way around the law though which bars are using. So long as food sales stay below a certian percentage of your total sales (forget the exact number, it's ten or fifteen percent or something like that I think) people can still smoke and alcohol doesn't count as food. So some bars are serving free food, for instence one around here does a free bbq every sunday and jacks the price of drinks up a few cents to make up the difference and they basicly keep on as before. It wouldn't work at a bar and grill type place where a lot of food is served, but places where there is only some food sales but enough to be effected it gives them away to go around the law.