Mandeville Update
City Council eases outdoor smoking ban
Louisiana Mandeville reduces buffer zone to 5 feet to avoid mayor’s veto
Friday, July 29, 2005
By Richard Boyd
St. Tammany bureau
The Mandeville City Council on Thursday made two changes to the sweeping June 9 smoking ban to keep Mayor Eddie Price from vetoing it.
After a moderate amount of discussion, the council approved an amendment to reduce the distance smokers must travel from the entrance of a building from 25 feet to five feet.
The council also adopted an amendment naming the parks and playgrounds where smoking is prohibited. Price said the June 9 ordinance as written would apply to the entire open Mandeville lakefront, which the city defines as a linear park.
The parks named in the amendment include the fountains at the Trailhead, Tyler Thomas Park, Paul Cordes Park and tennis courts behind City Hall. Playgrounds include those on the lakefront at Jackson Avenue and West Beach Boulevard along Lakeshore Drive. Under the revisions, smokers will be able to walk the entire distance of the lakefront.
Price, who has never vetoed a council action since taking office in 1996, threatened vetoing the ordinance over the park issue and over making employees walk 25 feet to smoke. He said some businesses do not have 25 feet to spare without forcing workers to go onto other property. The measure also might force workers to smoke in an area that doesn’t have protective cover.
Councilman Denis Bechac, architect of the smoking ban, the second such measure adopted in Louisiana, tried Thursday to reduce the distance from 25 feet to 15 feet, but he failed when no one seconded his motion.
Mandeville resident Cheryl Kline also argued for 15 feet, saying that statistics show that 85 percent of all cigarette smoke goes into the air and a 5-foot barrier would force nonsmokers to walk through a cloud of smoke to enter or exit a building.
But smokers and residents June O’Brien and Joan Fitzsimmons said most smokers are considerate of nonsmokers and move away from the main passages of buildings.
The indoor smoking ban covers all professional offices, buildings, stores, libraries, theaters, restaurants and city-owned facilities. It prohibits smoking for people standing in line to enter a concert at the Trailhead or a play at NorthStar Theatre. Smoking is still allowed at fairs and festivals such as the Seafood Festival and Our Lady of the Lake Festival and along the routes of the krewes of Eve and Orpheus.
Also exempt from the smoking ban are restaurants or bars that have a state liquor license. State law does not ban smoking in those places, and the city has no authority to ban it, Bechac said. However, such commercial outlets can impose their own smoking bans.
The first indoor smoking ban in the state was adopted in March in Shreveport. That ordinance, however, doesn’t outlaw smoking in as many areas as the Mandeville measure. Lafayette and some other cities are considering such bans, and volunteers with the American Cancer Society are beginning talks with Covington officials about such a ban.
Richard Boyd can be reached at rboyd@timespicayune.com or (985) 898-4816.
http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/frontpage/index.ssf?/base/news-4/1122617005185730.xml
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Smoking ban in limbo
Mayor Price says he will veto ordinance if not amended
By Suzanne Le Breton
June 21, 2005
MANDEVILLE – The Mandeville City Council may have approved a smoking ban, but the ordinance is still awaiting the mayor’s signature.
Mandeville Mayor Eddie Price said he is all for limiting smoking, but he said some parts of the ordinance are “ridiculous,” and if they are not changed he will veto the ordinance.
Price has until Thursday to sign or veto the ordinance, and it will not go into effect until 30 days after he signs it.
He is hoping this will give him enough time to meet with the City Council members who voted in favor of the ordinance, Denis Bechac, Trilby Lenfant and Jerry Coogan, and work out a compromise and an agreement to amend the ordinance before it becomes law.
If the ordinance goes unsigned, it will automatically become law.
If vetoed, this ordinance would be the first Price has vetoed since he was elected mayor in 1996.
“I have never vetoed anything, and I really don’t want to,” he said, but added, “if no agreement is reached, I’m going to veto it.”
Price said he is in favor of the ordinance but feels it reaches too far in some respects.
“I’m all for inside smoking rules,” he said, “but I think people who smoke have the right to smoke outside.”
Price is addressing a portion of the ordinance that was a sticking point with the council members who opposed it, Adelaide Boettner and Zella Walker.
Walker and Boettner opposed the ban on smoking in parks and playgrounds and questioned the need to ban smoking 25 feet outside an exit or entrance.
Price agrees these items should have been left out of the ordinance.
“Whether 10 feet or 25 feet, it’s a burden,” Price said, adding that he fears that point will increase the number of cigarette butts thrown out in parking lots.
“Let them walk up to the door and put out their cigarettes in an ash tray there,” he said.
“I think people who smoke have the right to smoke outside,” he said.
He said he is going to suggest to council members that smoking in parks be limited but not completely prohibited. He said he is going to suggest specifying areas in parks and parkways where smoking will not be allowed.
He said the ordinance is not consistent because it allows for smoking in restaurants with liquor licenses, which are protected from smoking bans by state legislation, but prohibits it out in the open in parks.
He thinks people should be able to smoke at the new fishing pier, on the sidewalks down the Lakefront and at festivals and parades. The ordinance, as written, would prohibit all of these.
While Price ponders if he will sign the ordinance, representatives from the American Cancer Society are working on getting other municipalities to pass smoking bans.
Tonya Ramsey with ACS said she already approached Covington Mayor Candace Watkins, and said she was very receptive to the idea. She plans to meet with Covington City Council members later this week.
She said the next municipality she is going after is Hammond, and she expects to approach the smaller municipalities in St. Tammany Parish next year, and after working with the incorporated areas, she said she will focus on the unincorporated areas of the parish in the hopes of making St. Tammany Parish smoke free to the extent that the state allows.
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Reaction mixed on smoking ban in Mandeville
Some not bothered by ordinance, others say it is a matter of freedom
By Suzanne Le Breton
MANDEVILLE – People have said, “It’s about freedom,” “It’s about health,” and “It’s about a person’s right to smoke.”
But regardless of what they are saying, the new Mandeville smoking ban is what people are talking about.?
Thursday night, the City Council approved what American Cancer Society representative Tanya Ramsey said is the “most comprehensive ordinance the state will allow you to enact” banning smoking in public places.
As people try and figure out where they can and where they can’t smoke, locals are still commenting on whether they are for or against the ordinance, which is now law.
Shelby Weary, who was enjoying an afternoon sitting on the Lakefront with Caressa Owens, said the smoking ban does not really bother him because he does not smoke.
Owens said while she knows a lot of people who oppose the ban, she likes the idea that “you can stand out and take your break without people blowing smoke on you.”
She was addressing the aspect that has caught some flack from residents and the two council members who voted against the ordinance, Adelaide Boettner and Zella Walker, which is the prohibition of smoking within 25 feet of an entrance or exit of a building.
While Weary and Owens do not hold strong opinions either way, Frank Carvajal, who was also enjoying a day on the Lakefront Monday, is strongly against the ordinance.
“The three people who voted for it, I will vote against,” he said. “And I will campaign against them.”
“They are taking my freedom away,” he said.
In addition to buildings where the public is invited the ordinance also governs parks and parkways like the Mandeville Lakefront.
Carvajal said smoking does not affect open air spaces like the Lakefront and he has a “real problem” with the city banning smoking there.
“It’s not a matter of health,” he said. “It’s a matter of freedom.”
Michelle Guedon likes to take walks on the Lakefront with her son and her dog, and she likes the idea that she can now do this without exposing her son to second hand smoke, which has been determined to be a known carcinogen.
“I’m glad of it because of my child,” she said.
Lonnie Tucker said he can see both sides of the argument.
“People have a right to smoke,” he said. “It’s their bodies.” But, he added, “You can’t lock it in an area.”
It is this second hand smoke that the ordinance is trying to protect residents from.
The ordinance states “a significant amount of secondhand smoke exposure occurs in the workplace,” and Denis Bechac, who drafted the ordinance with the help of representatives from the American Cancer Society and Tobacco Free Living, said, “The city has somewhat of a responsibility to control that.”
http://www.newsbanner.com/articles/2005/06/15/news/news02.txt
Mandeville bans smoking
The Associated Press
June 10, 2005
This scenic town on the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain has become the second city in Louisiana to ban smoking in most public places and private business, both indoors and out.
Under the ordinance that passed 3-2 on Thursday night and take effect immediately, smoking is barred inside public buildings and workers who want to smoke will have to walk 25 feet away from the outside walls. Smoking also is banned at the Mandeville Trailhead, along the lakefront, the city harbor, Sunset Point Park and the new fishing pier, the playground behind City Hall and the Tyler Thomas Park.
The ordinance is designed similar to one adopted in May in Shreveport and another being debated by officials in Lafayette.
Exempted are restaurants and bars with state liquor licenses, but those establishments can, under state law, establish their own smoking bans or create designated smoking and no-smoking areas.
Mandeville police will enforce the ban. An individual violator can be fined $50 maximum; a commercial owner can be fined $200 for each offense.
Council President Denis Bechac pushed hard for the measure and fought back amendments by Councilwomen Zella Walker and Adelaide Boettner that would have reduced the 25-foot, no-smoking barrier to 10 feet or to zero, and would have exempted public parks and playgrounds.
Tanya Ramsey, with the American Cancer Society’s north shore chapters, called the ordinance “a progressive and brave step.”
“This is a health issue and not a freedom issue,” she said.
http://www.tuscaloosanews.com/
Smoking supporters similarly challenge statistics that second-hand smoke causes up to 40,000 deaths from heart disease and 3,000 from lung cancer every year.
“That has never been proven conclusively. It’s been a witch hunt for the last 25 years,” said Garnet Dawn, Midwest regional director of The Smokers Club Inc., a national informational network that supports smokers’ rights.
Tanya Ramsey, with the American Cancer Society’s north shore chapters, called the ordinance “a progressive and brave step.”“This is a health issue and not a freedom issue,” she said.
Garnet Dawn – The Smoker’s Club, Inc. – Midwest Regional Director
The United Pro Choice Smokers Rights Newsletter – http://www.smokersclubinc.com
Illinois Smokers Rights – http://www.illinoissmokersrights.com/
mailto:garnetdawn@comcast.net – Respect Freedom of Choice!
