Times Colonist

June 3, 1999, Victoria, B.C.

REPLACE SMOKING BAN WITH SENSIBLE LAW

by Charlene Louise Silver

"Ban is having an appalling effect on smoking residents of senior's extended-care homes."

In the early '60s I worked in an office that prohibited women from smoking. Men could smoke, and they did ---- cigars, pipes and cigarettes. As this was my first job, I innocently tolerated this misogynistic policy until I left for a better position in a democratic office where one either smoked or one didn't. It just wasn't an issue.

Health was not an issue either because the air breathed was always fresh by way of windows that opened. Other than the usual seasonal colds we were basically a healthy lot, smokers and non-smokers alike.

Not any more. Now buildings are sealed with air trapped from Day 1. This old and polluted air just gets older and more polluted and more bacteria/virus/fungus infected. ---- and is circulated from floor to floor, person to person. The catalogue of allergies, syndromes, mystery diseases and sensitivities is a recent phenomena and alarming since the cause cannot be traced to cigarette smoke. Dangerous tombs, these high-tech marvels of engineering, technology and architecture.

Yet cigarette smoke, smokers and the tobacco industry have been made the scapegoats of all that is wrong with air quality. They are easy targets because they are visible and it is politically correct to harass them on the ever-weakening grounds that cigarette smoke is the singular element harmful to public. It isn't. These people know it, yet they insist on storming ahead with their pogram-like tactics and lynch-mob attitudes. If this is democracy then this fine word has been devalued.

With regard to the non-smoking policies imposed by service sectors such as the airline industry I have, like everyone else, deferred to and accept these decrees.

What I cannot accept is the Capital Regional Clean Air Bylaw (aka anti-smoking bylaw) which went into effect Jan. 1. I cannot accept this smoking ban because it applies, not to a service sector, but to the field of hospitality. This ban directly and adversely affects places where people get together to relax and enjoy themselves. already this ban has taken its toll, and continues to do so: reduced volume of trade, cutback of staff hours, loss of clientele and, finally, loss of revenue. Victoria is not a megacity. Victoria cannot absorb this loss.

And, sadly, this smoking ban is having an appalling effect on the smoking residents of hospices for the terminally ill and senior's extended-care homes ---- the last address for most of these people. It's inhumane and terribly high-handed to impose this ban on these men and women who have only a short while to live anyway. This is wrong. Furthermore, it's a known fact that many palliative-care facilities do allow smoking, drinking, pets, whatever it takes to ease the pain and the loneliness of the dying.

This smoking ban is unfair to everyone concerned and flies in the face of all that is democratic. Before the ban there were many smoke-free establishments; all others had designated smoking areas.

This worked well, Now operators are forced to regulate the use of tobacco products "by prohibiting the smoking or other uses or consumption of tobacco in classes or premises specified in the bylaw."

On my book, regulate means to adjust to a standard, and to prohibit means to forbid by law. To regulate by prohibition is a contradiction in terms. The Municipal Act does, however, read in part "regulating by prohibiting" --- three words that scare the hell out of me. The insidious nature and intent of this phrase forces me to give serious thought to the CRD's hidden agenda and wonder what it really is.

Prohibition doesn't work: enforcement of the Volstead Act in the '20s was a monumental debacle; criminalization of the use of narcotics has only escalated into the sad madness we know too well. People go underground. A few of uncertain ethics run supply lines. Some of these few ended up as scions of huge, and now legal, distillery empires; others make obscene amounts of money running the drug trade.

Regulation does work because it is fair and democratic; it doesn't hurt anyone; it doesn't make criminals out of ordinary people; and it doesn't waste money for enforcement ---- money the municipalities can ill afford during these tight economic times. No one person or legislative body can stop people from smoking by "regulating by prohibiting." It doesn't work that way. You know it and so do I.

In light of all the above I urge the CRD, the municipalities and the province to repeal the Municipal Act as it stands now and restore its wording and intent with the proviso, or course, that the "classes of premise specified in the bylaw" ensure air quality by installing appropriate air-filtering systems. I know this would work and so do you.

Repeal of this act does not mean loss of face. Rather, it ensures that Victoria gets to keep the national and international respect Victorians have enjoyed by preserving, and maybe even enhancing, their reputation as an open and friendly place where everyone is welcome --- those who smoke and those who don't.

A little sanity in these insane times goes such a long way!

Charlene Louise Silver is a poet and exiled smoker who lives in Victoria.