C-J returns to Jeff's proposed smoking ban, considers the ripple effect, quotes a councilman.

From Tuesday’s Courier-Journal comes this follow-up report on a rising tide that has huge potential implications for interpersonal relations in daily life:

Smoking ban idea in Jeff watched; Other communities might follow suit, by Alex Davis (short shelf life for C-J links).

An extended excerpt is justified; you’ll see why in paragraph four.

Some Southern Indiana government leaders are closely watching a proposed smoking ban in Jeffersonville and say they could support similar proposals in their communities.

If the Jeffersonville City Council approves its ordinance later this month, it would become the first government in Clark, Floyd or Harrison counties to pass legislation imposing major restrictions on smoking.

Last month, the council gave initial approval to the ordinance by a 4-2 vote. A second vote is scheduled for Monday and a third and final vote on Nov. 21.

Larry Kochert, a member of the New Albany City Council, said he is encouraged by Jeffersonville's move to limit smoking.

He said he considered a similar ban for New Albany about five years ago but dropped it after realizing that support wasn't there.

Kochert said public opinion about smoking has changed, though, and he predicts that the momentum from bans in Louisville and possibly Jeffersonville might be enough to turn the tide in New Albany.

"People who smoke infringe upon my rights," Kochert said. "If I walk into a restaurant, I should be able to breathe clean air."

Larry Kochert as anti-smoking crusader? Cool.

There’s probably no better example of the stark contrasts between medical fact and human custom, and the polarization of feeling that has resulted from this collision of worldviews, than the vitriolic debate over smoking in public places.

But perhaps it just seems that way to me owing to my own freely divulged internal contradictions. I’m a pub owner who smokes an occasional cigar, allows smoking in designated places in my establishments (as explained below, this perimeter will be shrinking soon), agrees completely with CM Kochert’s assessment of the right to clean air, and have been perfectly content to wait for governmental orders to do what I know is the right thing rather than risk becoming embroiled with friends and customers in the lamentable civil war that rages over the issue.

Two years ago, this fratricidal controversy invaded the previously placid turf of FOSSILS, our local beer appreciation and homebrewing society, which has met at Rich O’s Public House since 1990. Overnight, tempers flared, voices were raised, friends bickered, and the air became foul – not with cigarette smoke, but with whiffs of intolerance.

At the time, advocating mediation, I wrote the following:

To the smokers.
All of you know that although I’ve never smoked cigarettes, I enjoy cigars. Whatever the form, we as smokers must understand that when we indulge, so does everyone else in the room. Last Sunday, a group of cigarette smokers was speaking to me about the injustice of placing restrictions on smoking, and as they spoke, each of them was blowing smoke right into my face. Such behavior is invasive, it is rude, and it is no way to win friends and influence people. Furthermore, in FOSSILS as with Rich O’s, it is a fact beyond dispute by any reasonable person that smoking diminishes both the smoker’s ability to taste and enjoy good beer, and the ability of all others in the immediate proximity to do the same. Whether we as smokers like it or not, the world around us is in the process of re-defining social norms with respect to smoking. The burden does indeed lie squarely on us, whether we acknowledge it or not.

To the non-smokers.
Smoking remains a legal activity, and one engaged in by a sizeable percentage of people in our geographic area. Furthermore, if FOSSILS and Rich O’s were accessible only to those truly and exclusively interested in tasting the beer, patrons of both entities would number perhaps a dozen, all of whom would be "rate beer" correspondents and their mathematical probability charts. Take it from me – you don’t want that to happen. Speaking as one for whom beer is pre-eminent, I nonetheless have had to make peace with the compromises that are necessary to remain in business. People smoke, they drink from bottles, they wear enough cologne and perfume to mask a landfill, and they look at you and praise the beer they can’t taste. It’s a fact, and it isn’t going to change any time soon. When it comes to the drinking life as experienced in FOSSILS, there are as many personal motivations as there are people. They come to relax, to homebrew, to socialize, to never homebrew, to forget, to remember, and to engage in conversation. Smoking is a part of this, whether we like and acknowledge it, or not.

My conclusion?

Compromise, which eventually was achieved, and although matters have been manageable since then, it’s obvious that such measures represent little better than a stop-gap given the extreme passions unleashed during the process of temporary resolution.

My efforts to reform the workplace have gone slowly and incrementally, but they continue to inch forward.

Last weekend, my fellow owners and I agreed that from January 2, 2006, the front seating area of Rich O’s would become non-smoking, with smoking restricted to the bar area and the Red Room. The new banquet and conference wing will be non-smoking except for a designated lounge that can be sealed off from the remainder of the public area. Smoking will still be allowed in all of the Sportstime dining area, as the open nature of the layout makes it impossible to segregate diners according to tobacco preference.

I’m offering no conclusions today, merely outlining the problems involved with reaching consensus when passions are inflamed.