Business clout sent Eden Prairie smoke proposal up in flames

startribune.com ^ | 20 October 2002 | Terry Fiedler

[SheLion]

Eden Prairie's new smoking ban is drawing fire, but not from tobacco companies or other interests.

Antitobacco forces once saw the city as a beachhead for a campaign to ban smoking in private businesses in the metro area. Instead, the City Council last week adopted a modest measure that applies only to municipal property and public spaces.

[SheLion]

[SheLion]

"One of the businesses came to the council and said it would relocate," she said. "This is a pro-business council. To hear anything like that took our breath away. Then it galvanized restaurants and other businesses."

[Just another Joe]

She said quicker council action, without a sample ordinance posting, and perhaps with a trial ordinance if we could have snuck it in it would have been a lot harder to rescind, and it could have been worked.

There, I'm sure that's what she MEANT to say.

[Madame Dufarge]

She said quicker council action, without a sample ordinance posting, and perhaps with a trial ordinance, could have been worked.

Sample ordinance posting, my ass. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

A thread you posted recently (I think it was you SheLion) included remarks from a mayor grudgingly granting an last-minute extension to restaurant and bar owners in his city for further hearings on a proposed smoking ban. I'll bet the proposed ordinance was presented as a "sample ordinance posting" when it was actually the real thing. The mayor just didn't act fast enough: see the remark by the Nazi above.

"If we had passed a ban, it would have been much less restrictive than the sample and in the weeks and months that followed people would have realized how little it affected them and it would have been much less of an issue," Mosman said.

Bull, the camel's nose under the tent, and then a total ban, incrementally. The template.

These people really do make my skin crawl.

[July 4th]

These people really do make my skin crawl.

These people have the idea that business shouldn't be involved at all - as if the government only represents interest groups and private citizens. The city government that doesn't take all of its constituents into account will soon find itself a city with no businesses.

[SheLion]

There, I'm sure that's what she MEANT to say.

I'm sure that's how the WITCH meant to say it, too!

[SheLion]

These people really do make my skin crawl.

My sentiments, exactly! Behind closed doors. But, as we all know today, there is always a 'snitch' behind the closed doors with them! Thank God. They can't get away with their little tricks as easily as they once did!

[Great Dane]

#2...... Wish our City Council listened to business that well.

[Max McGarrity]

GMTA, Joe, my thinking exactly. "If we had slipped the ordinance through before people knew what we were doing, they'd have had a helluva time getting rid of it."

[Gabz]

Good for the businesses of Eden Prairie.

The Web posting said hotels could be told to keep 75 percent of their rooms smoke-free, a dictate that doesn't exist anywhere else in the country, according to representatives of the hospitality industry.

Come November 27 that statement will no longer be true.

One of the components of the Delaware ban is the 75% no-smoking room rule.

What a trip that's going to be when NASCAR comes to town again next spring. LOL - there is not a hotel room to be had in this state for the entire week before - and they think it could possibly be enforced.

I seriously don't think so!!!

I also seriously don't believe the ban will still be in place by the week of the Junes races!!!

[Johnny Gage]

"If we had passed a ban, it would have been much less restrictive than the sample and in the weeks and months that followed people would have realized how little it affected them and it would have been much less of an issue," Mosman said.

If that's the case... WHY PASS AN ORDINANCE IN THE FIRST PLACE.

Liar.

[SheLion]

If that's the case... WHY PASS AN ORDINANCE IN THE FIRST PLACE.

Our lawmakers just get dumber and dumber. They think we won't notice.