Pittsburgh smoking ban passes

Allegheny County Council passed a bill on Tuesday banning smoking in “enclosed areas” with… Allegheny County Council passed a bill on Tuesday banning smoking in “enclosed areas” with the exception of establishments adjacent to hospitals and tobacco specialty shops.

The bill passed with a vote of 14 to 1.

Megan Dardanell, deputy director of communications for County Executive Dan Onorato, said before Onorato agrees to sign the ban, he wants to look at the bill, the amendments and exemptions in it. For example, he will examine the amendment providing exemptions for places adjacent to health care facilities.

There will be a six-month grace period where people will receive warnings before they are given tickets.

WPXI reported that several business owners on the South Side had banded together and were intending to challenge the ban in court.

Cindy Thomas, executive director of Tobacco Free Allegheny, said that the TFA hopes there will not be any more exemptions.

“Enforcement is much easier when it’s a comprehensive ban,” she said. “We don’t want to enable some people to be exposed.”

When the Surgeon General reported that smoking and exposure to secondhand smoke is a health risk akin to smoking itself, county council President Rich Fitzgerald said he decided to act.

Fitzgerald, a nonsmoker whose district includes Oakland and Squirrel Hill, introduced the bill in early July.

Council member Michael Finnerty has spent much of the summer holding hearings and taking testimony from experts, restaurant owners and workers.

“The restaurant association did a 180,” Fitzgerald said on Tuesday. “They were against the ban, and now they’re for it.”

Finnerty said the bill is “for the health of workers, whether it’s a bingo or casino night at a fire hall. In those situations, the workers are young, we’re talking teenagers, and I don’t think teenagers should be exposed to that [smoke].”

Vic Walczak, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania, said that the ACLU hasn’t been involved and doesn’t plan to get involved in the issue of a smoking ban.

“There is no constitutional right to smoke,” he said. “If it was a ban on smoking inside your own house, it might raise civil liberties issues.”

Thomas said there is an issue with allowing people to engage in behavior that is dangerous to others.

“The ordinance is restricting where people smoke to keep others from harm,” she said. “Your right to smoke ends at my lungs.”

County council member Brenda Frazier said that the smoking ban is a matter of public health.

“It has nothing to do with someone’s rights to do certain things,” she said. “It’s a public health issue. It’s been proven that this is a preventable cause of death. No levels of secondhand smoke are safe.”

Athanasios Sikolas, a junior Japanese major and smoker, said people have an innate right to smoke.

“If the guy that’s running the restaurant or bar has no problem with people smoking in his establishment, it’s his establishment,” he said. “It’s the guy’s business. If he allows smoking in his establishment, then people don’t have to go there.”

Nadia Harris, a junior media professional communications major and a nonsmoker, said she would not like smoke in restaurants, but it might be okay in other places.

“In a casino or bar where people are used to smoking,” she said, “when you’re taking in stuff anyway, what’s a little smoke if you’re inhaling beer?”

Ben Hollinger, a freshman business major in Pitt’s College of Business Administration, said the ban was not much of a concern for him because he mainly smokes outside. He said he has a right to smoke, but he still supports the ban.

“I don’t think people should have to put up with my smoking,” he said. “That’s why I go outside.”