Solana Smoking Ban
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It is disturbing to see the extent to which local special interests will allow themselves to be manipulated. I am speaking of Solana Beach’s recent passage of an ordinance banning indoor smoking in workplaces and public places, including restaurants.
We learn after the fact--from the Los Angeles Times (Aug. 5)--that the opposition to the smoking ban was orchestrated, by that old nemesis of good health and clean air, the tobacco industry, under the banner of a new front group called the California Business and Restaurant Alliance.
Some local restaurateurs and the Solana Beach Chamber of Commerce made cause with this tobacco industry group, calling for a weakening or outright defeat of the ordinance.
If Solana Beach’s “captains of commerce” would stop whining and promote Solana Beach as a smoke-free haven for the 80% of the population who do not smoke, restaurant patrons would flock here just to get a rare breath of unpolluted air.
Solana’s new ordinance is a good one. It bans smoking only around nonsmokers who will be harmed by it.
ROBERT MELVIN, Solana Beach
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