Illiana? Not when it comes to smoking

It never fails to amaze me how dissimilar the political mentalities are between Illinois and Indiana – considering that in so many ways the two states ought to be among the most similar in the United States.

DeLUCA: Won't ban bacon double cheeseburger



But then, all we have to do is take into account the concept of banning the smoking of tobacco products in public places and we’ll see that State Line Road really has become a barrier as rigid as those walls that the conservative ideologues dream of erecting at the U.S./Mexico border.

THE ISSUE CAME up this week at both of the Statehouses (Springfield and Indianapolis), but with ridiculously differing results.

Here in Illinois, the state laws that restrict cigarette smoking in public places were enacted a few years ago.

Which led to an effort that came up for a vote on Tuesday on a bill that would create a new kind of state-issued license – one by which taverns could apply for if they wish to permit smoking in their establishments.

Which would mean the state would be able to regulate where people could smoke. It also would allow those taverns who are so desperate to have smokers (rather than people who would prefer not to inhale the exhaust from tobacco products) to be able to accommodate those customers.

THE MEASURE ACTUALLY made it through a legislative committee before getting shot down by an overwhelming vote (82 to 30) by the Illinois House of Representatives.

Critics called the measure a way to try to chip chunks out of the smoking ban that was enacted in Illinois to look out for the health concerns not only of the public, but also of the people who are employed in such taverns and would be subjected to breathing in cigarette smoke while working.

BROWN: Bill shredded like burger

Although it strikes me as ironic that the legislator who sponsored this particular measure is state Rep. Anthony DeLuca, D-Chicago Heights, whose legislative district includes such suburbs as Lynwood and Sauk Village – the Cook County towns that border up against Indiana.

Perhaps it is the intermingling of Illinoisans and Hoosiers that takes place on a daily basis at the southeastern corner of the Chicago area that causes an Indiana-style bill to get introduced into the Illinois political mix.

EVEN DELUCA’S DEFENSE that this is supposedly a matter of personal choice to smoke (which ignores the personal choice of those who don’t want to be subjected to the smoke) sounds Hoosier-ish – although I’m sure some will think his sarcastic line in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch about the next ban being on the “bacon double cheeseburger” is clever.

We may even have people at the Statehouse in Indianapolis thinking similar thoughts these days, as the issue is being considered there – as well.

Only in Indiana, the political pundits are claiming that state Rep. Charlie Brown, D-Gary, is somehow tainted by his proximity to Chicago and Illinois. Brown has been the leading proponent for Indiana enacting something resembling a public smoking ban, and it was his bill earlier this week that got chopped up into hamburger (perhaps for those bacon double cheeseburgers).

For his bill got significantly amended by the Indiana state Senate, which was expected to approve their weakened version. Proponents of a ban are hopeful that a legislative committee can reconcile it with an Indiana House version and come up with something tougher.

BUT AS AMENDED, Indiana would ban smoking in public – EXCEPT in taverns, charity gambling sites, nursing homes, veterans homes, retirement centers, group homes and mental health facilities.

When one considers that the Indiana version of a ban already exempted places like riverboat casinos, cigar and hookah bars, tobacco shops and private clubs, the real mystery will be to figure out just where an Indiana smoking ban would actually apply.

And yes, Indiana officials also voted to approve a measure making it clear that local governments do NOT have the authority to impose stricter laws within their own municipal boundaries.

It will be interesting to see how this issue is resolved in Indiana by the time the state Legislature is through with it for this year. For it seems that tobacco rules on the east side of State Line Road.

WHICH MAKES ME wonder if we could get an exodus of Hoosiers wishing to look out for their health – similar to those small businesses near the border that have moved into Indiana so they could get away with paying a couple of percentage points less in taxes to the state.

I’d say that would be a good trade, since if all the smokers were congregated in Indiana, their long-term health prognosis would be such that they’d wither away in numbers.

Although on a more serious note, I should say that the people who are most eager for their legal right to smoke in public remind me too much of the childhood bullies who terrorized the schoolyard to get their way. Now, they’ve got some money to afford a pack-or-two habit that they think they have some legal right to inflict on the rest of us.

Which makes me all the more glad I live to the west of State Line Road.

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EXTRA: Illinois takes its one step back following Death Penalty abolition

For those people who want to think Illinois is some sort of progressive paradise (or hellhole, if you’re an ideological nitwit), Tuesday was the day we took our one step back.

By that, I mean our state made some serious steps toward advancing into the 21^st Century by doing away with its flawed capital crimes statute (which required us to accept that it was flawed beyond repair) and accepting the reality of civil unions.

YET THE IDEOLOGUES got something they wanted – a lessening of the smoking ban in public places that made Illinois a Midwestern U.S. leader just a couple of years ago.

It was the fact that Illinois approved such a rigid ban that surrounding states were being forced to accept the fact that their ways were a bit backward. Even Indiana is beginning to realize it is just a matter of time before they will have to impose restrictions on use of tobacco products – in order to protect the public health of Hoosiers at-large.

Until Tuesday, that is.

For the Illinois House of Representatives, by a slim margin, voted to ease the restrictions on smoking in public by allowing people at the riverboat casinos that really aren’t boats to light up a cigarette and rot out their bodies while they play the games of chance that cause them to drain their wallets of cash, ATM card credits and anything else they have of value.

WHICH STINKS FOR people whose lot in life requires them to be exposed to such places. I could care less if would-be gamblers want to impose melanoma on themselves. It is the people who must work in such facilities (in a lot of these towns with gambling boats, there aren’t a lot of other employment options) who get exposed to second-hand smoke who deserve our protections.

But worse than that is the fact that I’m sure those Hoosier nitwits who think they’re somehow standing up for “the American Way of life” by letting people light up while playing a slot machine or a hand of blackjack are going to take the Illinois House action and claim it is a jolt of energy for their idiotic ideological position.

The Illinois House giving these political partisans a sympathetic vote is almost as morally bankrupt as extending a gambler’s credit while he’s down so that he can lose some more money – and really wind up leaving the casino boat with his pockets drained.

I couldn’t help but notice state Rep. Dan Burke, D-Chicago (and brother to 14^th Ward Alderman Ed Burke) who said during debate on this issue that “70 percent” of people who visit casinos smoke. Maybe if casinos weren’t such grungy (and gaudy) places, we’d have more non-smokers wanting to visit such places.

SO I AM skeptical of the gambling boat industry claims that Illinois’ riverboat casinos have lost some $800 million since Illinois banned smoking in public places. Could it be with the economic climate that has left many people unemployed that people just don’t have as much money to lose – out of some foolish belief that it is fun to piss away cash at games of chance while garish lights flash and there’s a fancy buffet available that will give you a bargain-priced meal if you have enough credits (ie., if you have lost enough and the casino owner wants to keep you on the premises so that you’ll lose even more money).

As you have likely (I would hope) figured out by now, I’m not a casino person (although my step-mother is, and she seems to have luck at winning). The ambiance is usually lost upon me. The idea of it reeking of stale cigarette smoke makes the place even less appealing.

I’m still trying to figure out the “logic” of an event I wrote about for an area newspaper last year that rewarded junior high school-age youth who participated in a program meant to get them interested in school and their studies with a fancy dinner at the casino boat in East Chicago, Ind.

Which is why I wouldn’t be the least bit upset if the Illinois Senate decides it doesn’t want to go along with this idea (which is possible, because Senate President John Cullerton, D-Chicago), isn’t exactly a tobacco-sympathetic person either.

EVEN GOV. PAT Quinn tossed out a little verbal snippet indicating he doesn’t think much of what the Illinois House did, although it remains to be seen if he becomes intimidated enough to give the ideologues this particular issue as  compensation for some of the significant measures he has signed into law in recent months.

That would be the real embarrassment for Illinois government.

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Illinois may amend smoking ban

So what does the Illinois House of Representatives do for a follow-up act on its first day in session after impeaching a governor? They take on a controversial measure that banned smoking of tobacco products in most public places across the state.

The Legislature and soon-to-be former Gov. Rod Blagojevich actually passed the smoking ban just over a year ago, so as to bring all of Illinois in compliance with places such as Chicago – where tobacco use in public has been improper for some time.

BUT THE REFUSAL of judges and prosecutors in certain parts of the state (ie, some rural counties) to enforce the public health-related ban caused too much of a mess.

So under a measure approved by the Illinois House on Monday, the state would alter the smoking ban so as to make it a civil complaint that would be enforced by the Illinois Department of Public Health.

In short, the courts and prosecutors who want to view the ability to “light up” a cigarette as a rebellious act of “freedom” (instead of what it truly is, a tyrannical act of forcing their tobacco stink on everybody around them) are no longer a part of the process.

It will now be the health-related state agency that includes among its duties whether to seek penalties (which will consist of fines) for people who insist on lighting up a cigarette in public.

WHEN ONE CONSIDERS that the Public Health Department can have a say in determining that a business is too environmentally unsound to remain open, it can be argued that businesses that think they can get away without enforcing “the law” would now face the possibility of losing whatever licenses they require in order to remain open.

How many business owners are going to be willing to be shut down, just so that one of their “customers” can light up and spread a stink?

This probably makes more sense than considering the offense some sort of criminal act. It’s not like the law, as it exists now, ever called for anyone going to prison (or even jail) for the act.

In fact, there’s really only one question about the proposed change, and it is not an issue of substance but one of procedure. Can the General Assembly get its collective act together to pass this for gubernatorial approval soon? Could one of Blagojevich’s final acts as governor be the amending of a law he originally approved in 2007?

OR IS THIS going to be a measure that takes some time, which means that a new governor would wind up signing the changes into law some time this summer?

What complicates things is that Tuesday is the final day of existence for the current Illinois General Assembly.

The “new” General Assembly elected on Nov. 4 (which consists of many of the old members, plus a couple of newcomers) will assume control on Wednesday.

In fact, this burst of work being completed Monday and Tuesday is the final moments of the 95th Legislature, trying to get one or two last bits of legislation on its way to the governor’s office for his desired approval before it becomes history.

SO IF THE “old” Illinois Senate does not manage to ram this measure through a committee hearing and the full chamber on Tuesday, the bill that was passed by the Illinois House on Monday will fail.

The idea itself will have to be resurrected during the spring before the 96th General Assembly, along with the thousand or so other bills that likely are to be introduced during the “Spring of 2009.”

Now I suppose in the big picture, it really doesn’t matter much whether the state Senate approves the proposed change Tuesday, or whether the whole state Legislature has to approve a new bill based on the same idea some time this spring.

Either way, it is likely that the change in statewide smoking ban will go into effect sometime during 2009. But this is a measure that in so many ways is so commonsensical that it would be a shame for it to have to wait a few more months.

IT’S NOT LIKE the General Assembly isn’t capable of ramming a new law through in a matter of hours when it is an issue desired greatly by the Legislature’s leaders. I still remember the final days in January 1997 of the General Assembly that ran the state during 1995-96. For those of you with short memories, those were the two years that Republicans controlled the entire Legislature and all six state constitutional offices.

Knowing that their ability to ignore everybody else and ram partisan measures through to their desire was about to end, THAT Legislature managed to pass a measure altering nonpartisan elections and the ability to vote a “straight” ticket with one punch on Election Day, just because it was believed by GOP partisans that the “straight punch” is what cost their preferred candidate for Cook County state’s attorney (remember Jack O’Malley?) his bid for re-election.

The “last-minute” bill rammed through the Legislative process can be used to impose punitive measures. Wouldn’t it be nice if one of the final acts (if not the last one) of a General Assembly run by retiring state Senate President Emil Jones, D-Chicago, were to be a measure that improves a law already in existence?

Besides, the new state Senate likely to be run by state Sen. John Cullerton, D-Chicago, is going to be absorbed so quickly with matters of impeachment and removal of Blagojevich from office that final legislative approval on a smoking ban could be the past positive action we see in weeks from the General Assembly.

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EDITOR’S NOTES: Current fines for people caught violating the state smoking ban are up to $250 (http://www.chicagobreakingnews.com/2009/01/statewide-smoking-ban-amended.html), while businesses that permit smoking can be fined at least that amount.

The overbearing tactics of some smoking ban supporters do not overcome its merits (http://chicagoargus.blogspot.com/2007/12/ban-ashtray-ads.html), while the idea that people who support smoking are (http://chicagoargus.blogspot.com/2008/07/since-when-does-safety-harm-freedom.html) fighting for our freedoms is just absurd.

Ban the Ashtray Ads

I don’t smoke. I never have. It’s just one habit that always struck me as too filthy and smelly to bother with.

So a part of me is eagerly awaiting Tuesday, when a new Illinois law takes effect that, for all practical purposes, bans smoking of tobacco products in public places.

But in recent weeks, there has been a television commercial airing on stations in the Chicago area. I would guess it is airing across the state, as well. It is an American Cancer Society public awareness spot that tries to illustrate how much happier life will be without cigarette stench in public.

A sudden swift kick, however, is the gut feeling I get every time I see the television spot. If I feel that reaction, I can easily imagine the smoking dimwits of the world seeing this ad and becoming even more enraged and determined to try to do something.

The television spot tries to depict a world without smoking where ashtrays are now obsolete.

A narrator talks about how people all across Illinois were forced to brainstorm for creative uses for their now useless ashtrays. We get to see the sight of people growing plants in them and kids using them as pucks to play hockey.

The most disturbing image, in my mind, is the sight of a woman hanging a Christmas holiday wreath on her home’s front door, with about a half-dozen ashtrays woven into the wreath. The woman turns to the camera and flashes us a big smile, as though all is right with the world.

Bull!

To me, using such an image trivializes the seriousness of the issue. The last thing any real person would ever do with an ashtray is turn it into holiday cheer. The image is just too absurd for the spot to be taken seriously.

I also fear the fact that it will stir up the anger of smokers, who already are trying to turn this issue into a case of their civil rights being violated.

Think I’m exaggerating? I recently stumbled across a new weblog written by a St. Louis man who believes Illinois’ new law will inspire Missouri officials to follow suit. Noting that Illinois sits right across the Mississippi River from the Arch and downtown St. Louis, he equates his ability to smoke a cigar in a restaurant with “freedom and property rights.”

I doubt he’s alone.

A group calling itself Illinois Smokers’ Rights has arisen, claiming the new law violates the provisions of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution that allow people the freedom to peaceably assemble in groups of their choosing.

What bothers me about this silly, trivial public awareness television spot is that it will stir up these people a lot more than necessary. I’m waiting for the first protest march by smokers seeking their “constitutional right” to ruin my meal with their tobacco stench.

They would have the support of corporate America. Many professional organizations representing the service industry, such as restaurants, lobbied hard against the new law, claiming they would lose too many customers who want to smoke.

The riverboat casino industry has been among those to complain about the new law, saying their business will suffer because they just can’t imagine a world where people lose their money without the stink of burnt tobacco lingering in the air.

For what it’s worth, Illinois Smokers’ Rights is part of a larger coalition of groups in 12 states that are trying to persuade corporate entities to cut off charitable contributions to the American Cancer Society, the American Lung Association and the American Heart Association -- all because those groups support the idea of statewide smoking bans.

Personally, I see smoking in public as the legal equivalent of that old saying, “Your right to swing your arms about freely ends at the tip of my nose.” I think my right to inhale as few noxious fumes in public as possible outweighs whatever pleasure you might derive from tobacco.

I don’t like this ad because it feels like needless piling on. We won this fight. The smoking bans enacted by Chicago and assorted suburbs in recent years gain added strength because their standard is now the law of the land, not just their isolated communities.

I almost fear that smoking in restaurants is going to become a conservative cause similar to Chief Illiniwek, the “honored symbol” (he’s really a mascot) of the University of Illinois at Urbana.

There were many years worth of verbal brawls between American Indian activists and the old-line alums who were willing to defend their right to have a white kid dress up as an Indian chief and do a dance that bore as much resemblance to native tradition as a document that has been photocopied six or seven times, losing something each generation.

I believe that if the student body at Illinois had decided the issue without the outside influences, the Chief would have been seen as a silly anachronism and would have died off years ago with little note from the public.

Now if only the idea of lighting up a cigar in a restaurant could do the same.

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EDITOR’S NOTE: Here’s a link to the weblog called “Keep St. Louis Free.” I think he’s wrong, but you can decide for yourself. http://keepstlouisfree.blogspot.com/