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Re:  Proposed smoking ban

Councilwoman Call,

I am writing to express my extreme anger and disappointment regarding the recent committee meeting and the subsequent article in the Courier-Journal.  From discussions with my husband and the information in the news article, it's obvious and disheartening that this was a total ambush by you and the paper. I respect the business leaders present but they were in no way representative of the business owners who will really be affected by a smoking ban.  And, I'm sorry to say that the comments attributed to them in the paper were basically lies.   They sounded very dramatic as I'm sure was their purpose, but they were not true.  

Mr. Jones said that a smoking ban would reduce the cost of healthcare and health insurance for employers.  If this is true, how do you explain a report from the Kaiser Family Foundation that health insurance premiums grew 13% in California in 2002, six times the rate of inflation and more than the previous years?  Health insurance premiums have grown 31% over 3 years in California.  This is a state where there has been a smoking ban for 10 years. Where are the savings that Mr. Jones spoke of?  Is he willing to guarantee the business owners of Louisville that he will reduce their Humana insurance rates if smoking is banned here?  I doubt it.

Mr. Blue tried to correlate "brain drain" with smoking. Either he doesn't know what "brain drain" is or he chose to ignore the true definition for drama purposes. "Brain drain" is the movement of science and engineering graduates to established high tech centers. They leave due to the lack of a high tech sector which can provide jobs for people with technology degrees.  "Brain drain" has nothing to do with smoking!  It's about lack of the appropriate jobs and industries. People choose where they live based on many factors but whether there is smoking in the state is not one of them. More likely, people look at jobs, housing, income, taxes, weather, home prices, schools, medical facilities and personal/property crime. Even Mr. Diaz admitted that he didn't know anyone who refused to come here (to Louisville) because of smoking in bars and restaurants. It was totally unfair that you did not invite other high profile community leaders to speak to the other side of the issue. Churchill Downs and GLI, Inc have both publicly stated their positions as being opposed to a smoking ban, yet they were not included in the committee presentations. 

Smoking ban opponents have already had to suffer through the Courier's previous article about Ellen Hahn's so-called study about "indoor fine particle concentrations", on the front page no less!  The piece was a totally biased article by a totally biased researcher. Ms. Hahn has been an outspoken proponent of smoking bans since day one. She and her "researchers" secretly went to selected venues and measured the air particles for a whopping 43 minutes out of the business day. They promptly concluded that basically, when people are smoking, there is more smoke in the air!  She then proceeded to compare her 43 minute measurement with the 24 hour average used to judge outdoor air. Ms. Hahn should know and probably does that indoor air quality is multi-factorial and involves much more than the number of burning cigarettes in the building. The factors include other combustible sources, location of the building, HVAC systems and quality of the outdoor air (3/4 of indoor air quality is related to outdoor air quality.)  I hypothesize that she could measure air quality in buildings without smoking and get similar variations because of the other factors involved. It's obvious that Ms. Hahn performed this "study" specifically to aid the proponents of a smoking ban for Louisville. This study would never pass muster to be published in a research journal because of its poor quality and lack of consent from the businesses involved. Only the Courier Journal and the Jefferson County Medical Society magazine (staunch supporters of a smoking ban) would print such junk.

I get the sense that you've already decided what you are going to propose to the council regarding this issue and I hope this is not true. This is a critical issue for the small business owners. The Coalition does not have the money that Smoke Free Louisville has. They have no money to fly in researchers from California and New York, they have real jobs and businesses to run and cannot spend the entire work week plotting and planning. They are just sincere, hardworking people trying their best to save and foster the businesses they have built. They are people you are supposed to represent. Please treat them with the same respect that you apply to strangers.

Thank you,

Concerned Citizen, voter, and Taxpayer

Louisville, Ky.

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