Itasca County Against Smoking Ban

To:  Local, State and Federal Government

The road to hell is paved with good intentions-an old axiom. but never more true than today.

Smokers are everybody. We are nice or not, neat or slovenly, educated or illiterate, wealthy or destitute, of good character or depraved. We are your family, your friend, your coworker, your boss, your employee, your waiter, your pilot, your cabbie, your favorite movie star, your grocer, your doctor.

Smokers don't like being defamed, being insulted, being called "addicts" or "junkies," being sent out in the cold and rain, or away from the building to smoke, being burdened with more taxes than any other segment of society, having children taught to hate and fear us, being called "ignorant, selfish child abusers" or even worse, even vilified as "murderers" with regards to secondhand smoke.

We are one in four of the population; there are some 60 million of us. We smoke. We don't want to quit, and if we do, we will, without your help, your coercion or your concern. We CHOOSE a lifestyle activity that YOU may not like. That's fine as it is not required that we all like what others do. But when you let that dislike turn into a deliberate disenfranchisement of one-quarter of the population, you should rethink your position and remember that those are the people who pay for your salary, your benefits, your way of life.

If a nonsmoker wants to open a nonsmoking restaurant or bar, he should have that option. A smoker should have the same option to open a smoker-friendly restaurant or bar, plainly marked, to cater to the portion of the population that shares that lifestyle choice. Equal treatment under the law is a precious part of our country, and this issue has dragged it in the dirt of anti-smoker zealotry. When a person opens a business, it is with the intent that they will run that business the way they choose to. That cannot be tolerated.

When government officials say that a smoking ban will not harm business, they are not looking at some very valid statistics. In the 17 months after the Minneapolis, Bloomington & St. Paul, Minnesota public smoking bans went into effect on 03/31/05, 83 establishments went out of business, including such major chains as Denny's, TGIFriday's and Perkins. You can also find plenty of pertinent information at http://www.smokersclubinc.com/. This site has some very interesting information regarding the inaccuracy of the science of secondhand smoke and how said science was found by a federal court in 1998 to be inaccurate and invalid.

If we, the people who smoke, had been told ten years ago that our government would single out, or even allow to be singled out, one quarter of the population to be disenfranchised - and TAXED to pay for that disenfranchisement - we wouldn't have believed it. Then, to turn around and proverbially spit in our face, telling us that our tax dollars have gone towards legislating what we love to do, well, that, I cannot tolerate.

There is no excuse for the treatment of smokers by our electorate. If county council and yourself insist on this smoking ban, we, the smoker proud, will still have some say - we can vote you out, which I, along with all of the smokers which I am associated with, intend to do.

There is no reason to legislate that all restaurants/bars, etc., be smoke-free except to punish smokers. And that ends up punishing business owners as well, regardless of the false claims of increased business.

It's time to stop the insanity. We face discrimination equivalent to that of a biblical leper, and I, one of many more than displeased with your decision, will not tolerate this any longer.

Sincerely,

The Undersigned

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 Revised: 09/28/07.