D.C. Weighs More Curbs on Smoking
Sidewalk smokers, beware: The D.C. Council might be coming after you.
And people who buy cheap cigars — whether for legal or illegal purposes — you, too, should be on guard.
Three years after the council approved a ban on smoking indoors at bars and restaurants, the council is now considering a proposal to give business owners the right to ban smoking within 25 feet of the front door of an establishment.
The legislation, which also makes it a crime for anyone younger than 18 to possess tobacco, represents another step in the District’s efforts to curb smoking.
“I think it is reasonable to say to a proprietor you can put up no smoking signs if you’ve got a problem with people standing on the sidewalk in front of your establishment,” said council member Phil Mendelson (D-At Large), a sponsor of the bill.
In addition to Mendelson’s bill, council member Yvette D. Alexander (D-Ward 7) is proposing to ban the sale of single, cheap cigars, which she says are increasingly being used to roll marijuana.
“I am killing two birds with one stone,” Alexander said. “To make them unattainable to young people and, let’s face it, a lot of young people are using them to smoke marijuana.”
At a hearing Tuesday before the Committee on Public Safety and the Judiciary, supporters and opponents of both measures faced off over how far the District should go in controlling tobacco and drug use.
Mendelson, the chairman of the committee, said he wants to discourage young adults from taking up smoking while protecting non-smokers from the effects of secondhand smoke.
Several advocates for health organizations, including the American Lung Association, testified in support of Mendelson’s bill. Altria, the parent company of Richmond-based Philip Morris, also announced its support for the legislation, even though it would be the city’s first effort to allow restrictions on smoking in outdoor public spaces.
“It doesn’t go far enough,” said Bob Summersgill of Smokefree DC. “In California, they don’t allow smoking on beaches and [in] public parks, and I would love to see that here, even though we don’t have that as a goal.”
But Joan Jackson, smoking in front of an office building on Pennsylvania Avenue on Tuesday, said she thinks the council is “going a little overboard.”
“The business owner, they don’t own the area out here; they shouldn’t be able to say who can smoke out here,” said Jackson, 53. “It’s a public street. . . . I think the government is getting a little too involved.”
Concerns about unnecessary government interference also dominated the discussion on whether to ban many single cigar sales.
Under the legislation, the ban would not apply to the city’s five tobacco shops that sell high-end cigars. Mendelson and Alexander said Tuesday they are also open to exemptions for cigar bars and restaurants.
The bill is aimed at convenience stores and other vendors who sell single cigars for $5 or less, which are associated with “blunts,” the street term for marijuana rolled in cigar paper.
Colin Ganley, a freelance reporter and cigar aficionado, told the committee he worries the proposed ban would unfairly target the city’s poorest residents.
“We have to be somewhat careful not to throw everyone who purchases these products, and may not have the incomes to buy other [cigars], under the bus,” Ganley said.
Alexander countered that few residents in her ward buy cigars for the tobacco. Instead, she said, companies are “targeting disadvantaged young people to promote drug use.”
But Darrell D. Gaston, an ANC commissioner in Ward 8, questioned how the proposed ban would be enforced, noting single cigars are often sold out of ice cream trucks in his neighborhood.
“We must stop putting band-aids on social problems,” Gaston said. “If you want to smoke, you will.”
By Tim Craig
Washington Post Staff Writer
September 30, 2009
