Ordinance takes effect in six weeks
The Grand Forks City Council passed a smoking ban Monday night that was short of the 100 percent coverage public health advocates have been pushing.
The new law essentially is the same as the one the council discussed extensively two weeks ago. Effective Aug. 1, it exempts a few businesses from the ban, most notably bars, including enclosed bars in hotels and bowling alleys.
Council members Dorette Kerian and Eliot Glassheim continued their fight to include bars in the ban, but failed to persuade the majority.
Still, anti-smoking forces saw the vote as a victory because the city now has a more restrictive ban than state law and is among the first cities to pass a ban since the state Legislature passed its own ban.
One major difference in the city and state bans is that the state law allows smoking in restaurant bars, if the bar is enclosed. No bar in a Grand Forks restaurant will be able to allow smoking no matter what kind of doors and partitions it puts up.
“We’re happy,” said Carrie Kaltenberg, coordinator of the Grand Forks Tobacco Free Coalition. “I’m so pleased. It’s the culmination of a lot of things.” Still, she said, her group would continue to educate the public and try to include other bars in future changes to the law.
The council has been debating the issue off and on since March, discarding two other totally different smoking ban proposals before settling on this latest one. And at each debate, there was a contingent of public health advocates and a few bar and other business owners who opposed them.
Crowd applauds
The crowd Monday broke into applause after the final council vote.
In the council debate two weeks ago, Kerian had tried to add an amendment that included bars in the ban but was rebuffed. She took a different tack Monday night, motioning twice to put an expiration date on the exemption for bars, first on Aug. 1, 2006, and second, a year later. Glassheim seconded the motions.
His was the only other vote in favor of the 2006 sunset. Council member Curt Kreun joined in the vote on the 2007 sunset.
Kerian and Glassheim argued that their amendment would give bars and their patrons time to get used to the idea of a smoking ban. It also would give hope to bar workers, Kerian said, who wouldn’t be protected under the new law.
Glassheim invoked the specter of rampant abuses: “Every time you have exemptions, you start down the road where you have people applying for more liquor licenses (to get around the smoking ban).”
In fact, a representative of the North Dakota Association for the Disabled told the council two weeks ago that his group is in the process of applying for a liquor license for the Bingo Palace, where it conducts charitable gaming.
Council member Doug Christensen, who voted with the majority, predicted the council probably would look into a modification of the smoking ban in 2007, when the Legislature meets again.
Kerian said it’s quite possible that could happen even earlier. She said she hoped public health advocates would continue to educate city residents.
Originally written By:Tu-Uyen Tran
Herald Staff Writer
Herald Staff Writer
