East Grand Forks Update
EGF CITY COUNCIL: Smoking ban loses vote
Issue will resurface when state passes ban
November 16, 2005
By Tu-Uyen Tran
Herald Staff Writer
East Grand Forks’ proposed smoking ban went down without even a vote at the City Council meeting Tuesday.
Opponents of the ban voted 4-3 to confirm a 2002 resolution that said the city would wait for the state to pass its own ban first.
Though resolutions are not binding, City Attorney Ron Galstad asked the council to rescind the resolution first before taking a vote on the ban. The council’s “no” vote by a 4-3 margin meant it never got to that second step.
Council members Dick Grassel, Mark Holy and Henry Tweten and Council President Glen Trembath were on the winning side.
Swing vote
Trembath’s was the swing vote. He’d expressed lukewarm support for the ban before but was troubled by the additional government intrusion into private businesses.
After consulting with many businesses and residents, he said, he decided that he didn’t support the ban after all.
Council member George Wogaman, the ban’s biggest proponent on the council, said he was “really disappointed” it didn’t get a vote. Had that happened, he said, he could have thrown in amendments that might have appeased some ban opponents.
“We’re turning our back on employees and citizens of East Grand Forks,” he said, warning that the state could pass a far harsher ban.
The city’s ban exempted bars and restaurants after 8 p.m. and it exempted fraternal clubs, such as the VFW, all the time. That exemption was to expire in a decade. Still, those businesses were the ban’s most strenuous opponents.
The end?
Tuesday’s vote isn’t necessarily the end of the smoking ban.
Unlike a vote on an ordinance, a vote on a resolution can be brought back again and again by any member of the council, not just those on the winning side, according to Galstad.
A new council with two new members will be taking office Jan 1. One of the newbies, Greg Leigh, will replace ban-opponent Holy and one, Wayne Gregoire, will replace ban-supporter Wogaman. Gregoire previously said he, too, supports a ban.
Park showers delayed
In other news, council member Dick Grassel said the state has rejected contractors’ bids for a new shower house at the Red River State Recreation Area.
City leaders had lobbied hard for the showers because the lack of showers caused some campers to choose other campgrounds.
The state rescheduled the new bids for spring, pushing back the opening date for the shower house, a move council members saw as a delaying tactic by a reluctant Department of Natural Resources.
EAST GRAND FORKS: Wait for the state?
Council resolved to not pass smoking ban without state action
October 27, 2005
By Tu-Uyen Tran
Herald Staff Writer
East Grand Forks City Council members will have to decide whether they’ll continue to honor prior resolutions not to pass a smoking ban before the state of Minnesota does.
Council member Mark Holy furnished copies Tuesday of a resolution on the issue that was unanimously approved in 2002.
The same resolution surfaced in March during debates over an earlier ban proposal. It didn’t do much to change council members’ opinions then, and it doesn’t appear to be doing that now. And the ban has far more support now than before.
Ban supporters such as council member Clarence Vetter said a resolution isn’t binding, and the council can change its mind. “Resolutions can’t tie council for the rest of eternity,” he said.
Council President Glen Trembath, who said he hasn’t decided to support or oppose the ban, agreed.
“The situation in the past is different,” he said. “Personally, I think it was just something that postponed things for a while. There’s more public interest now.”
In fact, Laura Driscoll, the council member who introduced the resolution in 2002, later became a smoking ban’s foremost proponent.
Holy’s reminder this week about the resolution did change one council member’s mind, though. Dick Grassel said he was OK with the proposed ban as it was written, but “if we made that promise, I’m going to stick by the promise.”
The ban is up for a vote at the Nov. 15 council meeting.
Read
CITY GOVERNMENT: EGF smoking ban stalls
Council members lack votes to settle matter
October 19, 2005
By Tu-Uyen Tran
Herald Staff Writer
Supporters and opponents of the proposed smoking ban in East Grand Forks had their first big face-off before City Council on Tuesday night, but council members didn’t settle the matter.
With two council members absent, the law got only three of five votes. That’s a majority, but a minimum of four votes was needed.
The council can try again when it meets in two weeks, which means supporters and opponents might have to come back for a rematch as well.
Council members Dick Grassel and Henry Tweten were the no votes. Council members Steve Gander and Mark Holy were absent, as was Mayor Lynn Stauss, who was sick.
The smoking ban would go into effect Jan. 1, but would exempt fraternal clubs until 2016. Another exemption would apply to bars and restaurants from 8 p.m. to 3 a.m. Council members have said they’d be willing to extend the exemptions even further if necessary.
The con side
Despite those assurances, the bars and clubs were not happy.
Ron Miller, commander of the local American Legion, said he fears for the club’s business. Charitable gambling, he said, took a 25 percent hit in Hennepin County, Minn., when a smoking ban was enacted there.
“I’d like to remind the young lady who was speaking up here that smoking still is legal in this country,” he said, referring to a ban proponent who addressed the council. “If somebody wants to ban smoking, Washington, D.C., is where they want to go.”
Miller invoked the ghosts of veterans buried in battlefields around the world: “They didn’t protect those freedoms for nonsmokers. They protected those freedoms for everyone. Smoking is a matter of choice.”
Greg Stennes, the owner of Whitey’s bar, said the ban “violates the rights, the constitutional rights, of those businesses that want to be open and allow smoking.”
He also argued, as Miller did, that businesses such as his would be hurt and that would be bad because bars and restaurants are one of East Grand Forks’ biggest sectors. “The economic consequence of that scares the daylights out of me.”
The pro side
Supporters of the ban think that’s overstating the case.
In nearly every city in which there has been a smoking ban, business has improved, said D’Anne Johnson, a health educator with Polk County Public Health. Bans help smokers trying to quit resist the temptation, she said. That’s good for business because smokers, she said, tend to take more sick leave than nonsmokers.
Donna A?el, a physician with Altru Clinic and RiverView Hospital in Crookston, said she sees all too often the health impact of cigarette smoke, which she called an “airborne poison.”
“I have to teach people how to use inhalers, explain the need for chemotherapy, write for oxygen, refer for an angioplasty, approve orders for hospice care,” she said. “In the big picture, my efforts are too much, too late.”
“You, on the other hand,” she said to the council, “can make a difference upstream for a whole community of people.”
The other side
Most council members agreed a week ago to a compromise between the pro and con sides of the issue, extending the exemptions for bars, restaurants and clubs to 2016. Only Tweten disagreed.
He said the state ought to spend money to educate people about the dangers of smoking. It’s not the city’s job, he said.
Grassel, however, unexpectedly joined him in voting the smoking ban down Tuesday because he wanted to delay a vote until all council members were present. “This is a decision to be made by the full council,” he said, “not just us.”
Council member George Wogaman, the biggest supporter of the ban, said he’d rather vote now. “We’ve discussed this,” he said, referring to the numerous meetings the council has had on the issue. “Nothing has changed.”
But Grassel had the critical fourth vote, and he voted “no.”
Read
http://www.grandforks.com/mld/grandforks/12938316.htm
CITY GOVERNMENT: EGF wrestles with smoking ban
Vote set for Oct. 18
By Tu-Uyen Tran
Herald Staff Writer
A smoking ban that would exempt fraternal clubs completely and bars partially for 10 years will go before the East Grand Forks City Council Oct. 18.
Council members reached that conclusion Tuesday after an arduous debate filled with familiar public-interest-versus-business-rights arguments.
Bar operators made a strong showing at the meeting seeking to keep the exemptions indefinitely. But most council members favored some kind of sunset clause on the exemptions having been lobbied by area public health groups.
As it stands, clubs such as the VFW will not have to ban smoking while privately-owned bars and restaurants can allow smoking after 8 p.m. when most of the business won’t be from families.
Private bars also can allow smoking at all times if they separate their smoking and non-smoking areas with a wall.
Council members had a hard time making a decision, spending most of their time rehashing old arguments or listening to bar operators do the same.
EGF CITY COUNCIL: Smoking ban met with red-hot opposition
Clubs and bars line up to speak out against proposed ordinance in EGF
October 5, 2005
By Tu-Uyen Tran
Herald Staff Writer
East Grand Forks’ proposed smoking ban is getting stiff opposition from bar owners and service clubs even though it is more lenient than the ban now in place in neighboring Grand Forks.
Opponents told the City Council on Tuesday that such a law would cost them business and, in the case of the clubs, force them to reduce their charitable giving.
The proposed law would exempt clubs for at least five years, allow smoking after 8 p.m. at bars and restaurants and allow smoking at all times if the smoking section is enclosed and ventilated.
The Grand Forks law exempts bars but not bars that are in restaurants. There is no time limit and there are no exemptions for enclosed smoking sections.
Ban opponents found a strong ally in council member Henry Tweten, who went as far as verbally herding ban opponents to the podium and, at one point, began prompting a bar owner. He and Council member Dick Grassel then made the somewhat unusual motion “that the ordinance not be introduced.”
The rest of the council resisted, though, and, absent Council Vice President Mark Holy, voted to continue discussing the matter further at an Oct. 11 session.
Pro side outmatched
The balance of power between ban supporters and opponents in East Grand Forks, at least Tuesday, proved the exact opposite of what it was in Grand Forks when the council there discussed its smoking ban.
In Grand Forks, supporters made overwhelming shows of strength at nearly every Grand Forks council discussion, while bar owners appeared in small numbers and only late in the process.
In East Grand Forks, the only speaker who favored the ban was Carla Bichler, a resident and member of the Tobacco Free Coalition that pushed the Grand Forks ban. She was utterly outnumbered by ban opponents from the VFW, American Legion and Eagles Clubs along with the owners of the Blue Moose and Whitey’s.
Bichler’s pitch was based on her experience working with recovering patients at Altru Health System. She said she frequently hears the same lament about smoking: “If I would’ve known then what I know now.”
Fears of a crash
Opponents made the familiar personal choice argument, though the more common argument was that business would suffer.
Ron Miller, commander of American Legion Post 157, said his club already is saddled with debt from the 1997 flood and facing rising energy costs. “If this ordinance passes and we lose a good share of our patrons, it will accelerate that decline.”
Eagles Vice President Mike Holweger said Eagles clubs in Minneapolis are “just about ready to close the door (due to that city’s smoking ban). Ninety percent of their patrons are smokers.” He said that figure is about 75 percent for the East Grand Forks Eagles.
Fred Metcalf, commander of the local VFW, said clubs deserve perpetual exemption, not the five-year exemption, because they give all their profits to the community. With a smoking ban, he said, they might not have money to give.
Mayor Lynn Stauss, long a staunch proponent of downtown bars and other businesses, questioned all the drama. “You say you’ll get no customers,” he said, “Why are so many bars that have no smoking doing well?”
Council member Steve Gander said he’s not convinced by the argument that clubs would have less to give. He’s more inclined to grant exemptions out of respect for veterans, he said.
Tran reports on City Hall. Reach him at (701) 780-1248 or ttran@gfherald.com.
Read? http://www.grandforks.com/mld/grandforks/12819602.htm
