WI: Smoking ban advocates face fine

APPLETON — The group that brought the issue of secondhand smoke hazards to Appleton is being fined for distributing improperly identified campaign material.

Outagamie County Dist. Atty. Carrie Schneider said today that officials of the Community Action for Tobacco Free Living Coalition have indicated they will likely pay a fine in connection with a forfeiture complaint charged on Tuesday.

The complaint, alleging the coalition violated state election laws by failing to note on some campaign material who authorized and paid for the material, is not a misdemeanor or felony and does not carry a jail sentence.

“It would be like getting a ticket for littering,” she said.

The charge comes less than a week before Appleton voters will take to the polls to decide whether to maintain the city’s 100 percent workplace smoking ban or exempt bars and other businesses.

The coalition sent out 5,000 postcards that declared, “Your right to breathe smoke-free air is in jeopardy,” but failed to note on the cards who authorized and paid for the cards.

Schneider said a court appearance is scheduled for April 18 where coalition officials are expected to agree to pay a fine of $200 plus court costs all totaling $373.

Connie Olson, executive director of Community Action for Tobacco Free Living Coalition, could not immediately be reached for comment, but previously said the cards were intended as educational and not campaign material.

The coalition is not authorized to lobby.

Appleton Ald. Richard Thompson, who opposes the smoking ban, filed a complaint with Schneider’s office in October after receiving one of the cards in the mail.

Thompson said he is pleased with the outcome of his complaint.

“The message this sent is much more important that the fine,” he said. “The law says you have to put certain things on your campaign material. The fact is these people got caught with their hand in the cookie jar. They felt they could run rampant and do whatever they want to do.”

Schneider said she doesn’t regard the issue as serious.

“Election law can sometimes be confusing, yet we hope people follow and comply with the law,” Schneider said.

RESEARCHERS BLAST CALIFORNIA EPA REPORT: SECONDHAND SMOKE FINDINGS BIASED, FLAWED

01/30/2006-The American Cancer Society stated unequivocally, in a written comment, that it did not agree with Cal-EPA's conclusion that secondhand smoke was a cause of breast cancer, and that published evidence did not support the requisite criteria for causation.

Claims of secondhand smoke risks don't pass science test

Posted by the Asbury Park Press on 01/4/06

Articles, editorials, op-eds and published letters in the pages of many of New Jersey's newspapers have been heavily lopsided in support of the effort to ban smoking in bars and restaurants. Each article or commentary seemingly has been designed to leave the reader with the perception that the supportive evidence presented is undeniable or that no contrary findings or opinion even exist.

Any claim that exposure to exhaled or sidestream smoke poses a threat to life is "indisputable" is false. There are studies and scientists who dispute it strongly. When New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg claimed his ban would save 1,000 workers' lives, the president of the American Council on Science and Health, who vehemently opposes smoking, wrote, "There is no evidence that any New Yorker — patron or employee — has ever died as a result of exposure to smoke in a bar or restaurant." Dr. Richard Doll, the scientist who first linked active smoking to lung cancer, said in a 2001 radio interview, "The effects of other people smoking in my presence is so small it doesn't worry me."

These statements, among many others, are based on the results of studies that found no long-term health risks, and even on studies that claim to find risks, because the science is so weak.

Since smoking bans are premised on protecting nonsmokers, this nonsense to ban smoking should stop right here. It is not a public health issue. However, the anti-smoking crusaders cloud the issue by also dragging in misapplied majority opinion. It's constitutionally unethical for the majority to tyrannize the minority.

But more importantly, polling the public to determine a private establishment owner's fate is indecent. No customer or employee — each free to be there or not — should be able to dictate the house's rules. And for the "my way or the highway" anti-smokers who don't get it, we mean smokers shouldn't either. Only one person's vote counts — the owner's.

The case that workers shouldn't have to leave an environment they don't like or hours that fit their personal needs is nothing more than emotional blackmail. Slavery ended a long time ago. No one is forced to do anything they don't like.

For the lawmakers who believe economics is the determining factor, New York City's sales tax revenue for bars and restaurants did not rise 8.7 percent, as claimed by agencies Bloomberg dispatched on the one-year anniversary (March 2004) of the city's ban. Not only were the figures distorted by including places like McDonald's and Starbucks as restaurants, but smoking was banned in 95 percent of restaurants since the 1995 smoking ban law. What pre- to post-ban restaurant tax revenue comparison was there to make? In all cases (notably bars), it's a no-brainer that sales tax revenue was artificially low immediately following 9/11. To compare the post-ban year to those figures is dishonest.

In April, the New York State Department of Taxation released a much more official review of sales tax revenue. When one compares the pre-ban year to the post-ban year, bars in New York City lost more than 3.5 percent. Statewide, as confirmed by a report in the New York Post May 2, sales tax revenue "dropped or remained relatively flat since the smoking ban went into effect July 2003."

Junk science, tyranny and cooked books is pitting neighbor against neighbor and has ruined or will ruin individual livelihoods. Unbelievable. Don't do it, New Jersey.

Oak Ridge Labs, TN & SECOND HAND SMOKE

Statistics and Data Sciences Group Projects

I think any anti who tries to dismiss the findings of the U.S. Department of Energy labs at Oak Ridge, should be confronted with the question: "Are you saying that DOE researchers committed scientific fraud and that their findings on ETS exposure are untrue?"

But where does this Taliban-like anti-smoking campaign come from? It can't really be this stuff about second-hand smoke. The famous 1992 Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) study showing a causal relationship between second-hand smoke and cancer was so roundly debunked as junk science (even by other federal agencies) it was finally declared "null and void" by a federal judge. Sure, second-hand smoke can be annoying, and it can't be healthy, but if you relegate smokers to their own enclosed space _ say a bar or a separate part of a restaurant where people, including staff, only go of their own free will _ who can object?

Federal Court Rules Against EPA on Secondhand Smoke

THE REAL FACTS OF THE SMOKING BANS IMPACT ON BUSINESS'S
The Facts

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