The long years of work, public discussions and decision-making should not be dismantled at the last minute.
Comprehensive clean indoor-air ordinances for Terre Haute and Vigo County are on course to take effect next month. The county commissioners and the City Council can show strength and civic responsibility by guiding those ordinances toward implementation. The ordinances will prohibit smoking in virtually all indoor workplaces, including bars, fraternal organizations and private clubs. The laws will protect employees from health-threatening secondhand smoke and are worthy of remaining intact.
The City Council passed its ordinance 18 months ago. The commissioners created the community’s first clear-air ordinance in 2006; it took effect in 2007, but gave taverns and private clubs a five-year exemption. That exemption is due to expire July 1, the same day the Terre Haute ordinance is scheduled to become a reality. The commissioners will conduct a public hearing at 6 p.m. Tuesday in the Vigo County Annex to discuss the prospect of matching the county ordinance with the city ordinance.
The laws should indeed mirror each other, and not be diluted.
Opponents to the ordinances have rallied forces in the homestretch. Their arguments, while understandable, have not changed since the Vigo County Board of Health first broached the subject of a local smoking ban more than eight years ago. They contend that a smoking ordinance will doom their taverns and clubs, and constitute a denial of individual and business-owner rights. They’re asking Terre Haute and Vigo County to adopt the standards of the state indoor public smoking law. That Indiana law, recently passed by the Legislature, is far less restrictive than the local ordinances, and is one of the weakest in America.
The opposition being heard now by the commissioners and the council members should be considered and noted, but kept in perspective. Numerous public opinion polls have shown that a majority of Americans, and Hoosiers, favor comprehensive smoking laws for public places. A Gallup poll last year showed that 59 percent of people in the U.S. supported full clean indoor-air laws. Last January, in a survey of 500 registered voters in Indiana by Public Opinion Strategies, 70 percent of Hoosiers backed a law to ban smoking in indoor workplaces and public places, including bars and restaurants. That exact same percentage, 70, favored a ban of smoking in all indoor workplaces for Vanderburgh County, according to a 2006 survey by IUPUI as that county was considering a full ordinance.
The commissioners and council members also need to consider the voices of those not rallying at their meetings, especially employees — and future employees — of entities that currently allow smoking. When the rights of businesses and smokers are weighed against the rights of those exposed to secondhand smoke (a proven cancer and heart-disease hazard), the scales clearly tip toward the right to a healthy environment in which to earn a living. The inhaling of somebody else’s unwanted cigarette smoke by an employee is not an example of rights being exercised; it is an example of rights being ignored.
The community’s health, which is low by state and national standards, will benefit from the ordinances. Businesses and smokers will adapt, as they have in other Indiana and U.S. localities with workplace clean-air laws. The sky is not falling; it’s getting clearer.
Editorials
EDITORIAL: No smoky picture: Clean air ordinance should stand
Opponents’ arguments have not changed since beginning of discussion
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The celebration season
Spring has been a bit elusive at times in 2013, which is its nature.
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EDITORIAL: Noteworthy in the news: MVC tourney an event worth having
It’s been a long time since the Missouri Valley Conference chose Indiana State University to host its post-season baseball tournament, but Terre Haute had never been more prepared for an event such as this.
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EDITORIAL: Cleaning up voter rolls
It’s not a lot of money in the big scheme of things, but the $2 million designated in the recent session of the General Assembly will begin the messy but necessary process of cleaning up Indiana’s voter registration rolls.
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EDITORIAL: Waging the ‘readiness’ campaign
Almost every Hoosier who starts college intends to finish. Unfortunately, those who arrive on campus unprepared in key academic areas are far less likely to fulfill that aspiration.
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EDITORIAL: Insult to an independent press
Distrust of government secrecy has been elevated to an exceptional level with the disclosure the Justice Department covertly examined two months of Associated Press phone records to determine who leaked details to the AP about a foiled terrorist plot.
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EDITORIAL: Noteworthy in the news: Dashing finish for the Sycamores
It’s always thrilling to see Indiana State University’s athletic teams do well in high-level competition, and two specific teams rose to impressive heights last weekend in the Missouri Valley Conference outdoor track and field championships.
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EDITORIAL: Better monitoring needed to prevent local environmental messes
The nasty, hazardous messes lurking in the community raise a bottom-line, red-flag question. Could these environmental problems have been monitored and, thus, prevented?
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EDITORIAL: Memo to U.S.A.: You can ‘SPPRAK’ just as we do in Vigo County
Our kids, truly, are ‘Making a Difference’
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Some words in praise of boring government — Indiana’s
A conservative Republican governor has super majorities in both branches of the legislature. One might suspect such one-party government leads to major changes in public policy. This did not happen in 2013 in Indiana.
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EDITORIAL: Doc’s prescient prescription
Viewed through a 2013 prism, Doc Bowen’s response to the AIDS epidemic looks merely prudent, routine.
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EDITORIAL: Education remains worth the cost
Within the next few weeks, each of the local colleges will have conducted graduation ceremonies. A few days later, a different Class of 2013 will don caps and gowns for commencement — the seniors at five Vigo County high schools. It is still a smart, worthy aspiration for those high school grads to replicate the achievement of those college students by earning a higher-education degree.
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EDITORIAL: Good news for downtown
For decades, it seems, downtown Terre Haute has been in the throes of change
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EDITORIAL: Overall, state budget step in the right direction
For average Hoosiers uninterested in political point-scoring, the budget crafted by the Indiana Legislature inspires only muted, if any, fanfare.
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EDITORIAL: The lessons of organ donation
The range of emotion surrounding life-saving transplantation of a vital organ is extreme. It is the ultimate “good news-bad news” scenario.
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READERS’ FORUM: April 26, 2013
• Pence’s tax cuts benefit wealthiest
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EDITORIAL: Noteworthy in the news
This does not qualify as a surprise in any way. But the Wabash Valley’s response to widespread flooding of recent days has been nothing short of impressive, even inspirational.
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EDITORIAL: Still waiting for the jobs reward
The forces in control of Indiana government for most of the past decade need to show some results to Hoosiers in one primary category.
Good-paying jobs. -
MARK BENNETT: Littered with irony: Why do people callously discard their trash, and who are they?
Though they aren’t acknowledged by the U.S. Census Bureau, there are basically two demographic groups of people … Those who would dump their old toilet on the banks of the Wabash River or a rural roadside. And those who wouldn’t.
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EDITORIAL: Doing the dirty work to clean up tossed trash
A first-of-its-kind, coast-to-coast project to remove litter from U.S. roadsides brought the Pick Up America crew through the Wabash Valley two years ago.
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EDITORIAL: Keep school security a local issue
The decision to provide armed security inside a schoolhouse should be made locally.
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EDITORIAL: Noteworthy in the news
Indiana’s parks need your help.
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EDITORIAL: The return of terror
Emotions today remain strong and raw in wake of Monday’s terror bombings near the finish line of the Boston Marathon.
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EDITORIAL: A solution to distracted driving … stop it … now
You’ve got to stop. You know you do it. It’s a miracle you haven’t caused a tragedy already.
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EDITORIAL: ‘Women of Influence’: 2013 selectees have given much to their communities
For the second year, United Way of the Wabash Valley has teamed up with local sponsors to select and honor a group of women who have made outstanding contributions to their communities, professions and families.
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EDITORIAL: Noteworthy in the news: A new honor for our veterans
A commendation goes out today to state Rep. Clyde Kersey, a Terre Haute Democrat who led the charge this week in the Indiana House of Representatives to pay tribute to the nation’s Purple Heart recipients.
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EDITORIAL: Shifting view on marriage
One could argue, as many have, that Sen. Joe Donnelly did the right thing last week when he dropped his support of government-sanctioned opposition to same-sex marriage. It wasn’t a radical move, considering most Democrats have now made the switch.
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MAX JONES: The American Newspaper: Changing? Yes. Dying? No way!
It happened again this past January when all those “looking at the year ahead” stories started popping up on Internet “news” websites and broadcast “news” programs. Under a provocative headline reading something like “Five industries/businesses doomed to tank in the coming year,” there it was, a prediction based on an unsubstantiated “expert” analysis that the newspaper industry will continue in 2013 to suffer its slide into oblivion.
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EDITORIAL: A chance to change our bad cultural habits
The sight of diligent, eager young people dragging trash out of the Wabash River wetlands is both inspiring and sad.
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EDITORIAL: Maintaining high standards
Standards
It’s the raging buzzword in education circles these days. Everyone insists that higher standards must be met. Anything less is, doggone it, unacceptable. -
Noteworthy in the news
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