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Commissioners Cave in on Saginaw
Smoking Ordinance
By Robert E. Martin
At their April 25th meeting the Saginaw County Board of Commissioners approved the so-called 'Clean Indoor Air Regulation' that will attempt to ban smoking in privately owned businesses and offices, even if such office is not open to the general public.
With the exception of Commissioners
Kenneth Horn and Thomas Basil, the majority of Commissioners
reversed the position taken at their earlier meeting, which would
have allowed for a meaningful exemption to the far-reaching parameters
of this newly adopted ordinance.
Under the new law, business owners are
exempt from liability so long as they post no smoking signs and notify
tenants in writing of the no smoking regulation. Additionally, an
employer owned or leased vehicle that is occupied by one employee and
not occupied by other employees or the public is also exempt.
Business & property owners also have the
option of constructing an outdoor smoking structure providing it
meets a set of stringent guidelines involving separate ventilation
systems. Because of this stipulation in the new regulation, the County
will be eliminating its smoking room, as they reportedly received a
$75,000 estimate for a separate ventilation system.
In the original language for exemptions
adopted by the Commissioners, any leased business space which contained
a private suite NOT open to the general public, which contained
owners, employees or independent contractors that preferred or choose to
smoke, would be exempt from the mandates of the ordinance by submitting
a request to the Saginaw County Public Health Department. Moreover, the
Saginaw Board of Commissioners stated at that meeting if the SCPH denied
the exemption, the business owner could appeal directly to the Board of
Commissioners.
The fact is, with their newly crafted
'compromise', the Board of Commissioners abandoned their commitment to
protect the legitimate rights of business owners as they pertain to
their private office space, while saddling them with an entire slew of
new costly posting regulations and penalties.
Most important, nowhere in the revised
law is there mention of filing EXEMPTIONS, as the Commissioners
initially demanded. The only language pertains to APPEALING an
issued citation, which presumes guilt predicated upon freedom of choice,
which fortunately is not yet a crime in this country.
Supposedly the language was stricken due
to 'vagueness'; however there is nothing vague about a business applying
for an exemption based upon succinct language reflecting protected
constitutional principles regarding the alienability of private property
& leaseholds.
Indeed, the following language could
easily be posted in tandem with the laborious and costly ones businesses
& landlords must now be required to display:
'This office is a PRIVATE office,
not open to the public. Each owner, employee, or contractor that works
here chooses to use tobacco related products. Do not enter this premises
if you are concerned about the effects of second-hand smoke."
There you go. It's that simple.
As for the 'smoking zones'
contained in the newly adopted language, why the need for businesses to
expend costly renovation projects to have separate outdoor exhaust
systems when they could simply stand by an open window of a
self-contained zone; or, better yet, purchase an Ionic Pro from
Sharper Image for a couple hundred bucks? This is what I currently
use in my home and they eliminate all smoke quite efficiently - yet have
I to find residue on my living room walls when cleaning them.
But the long and short of this is that
given all the economic problems facing Saginaw County (along with our
State), coupled with the far more serious health issues affecting people
in Saginaw County such as dioxin contamination that fail to be addressed
by the Public Health Department, this ordinance is a perfect
example not only of the unwillingness of so-called leaders to
compromise in a rational manner; but of the unnecessary burden that
'politically correct' social engineering has engendered within our
State.
I have been a Democrat all of my adult
life, but when I travel and visit other states the one thing I see about
Michigan is that it overtaxes and overburdens the Middle Class in ways
that are totally illogical.
Fortunately, Republicans were able to
derail the latest Big Brother move attempted by the Democratic
leadership in Lansing to ban smoking in restaurants & bars, because I am
certain that further alcohol prohibition will be next.
With the case of the new smoking ban, it
goes straight to the heart of freedom of choice AND privacy. I fail to
see how it is the business of government to dictate what goes on in
PRIVATE enclosures affecting nobody except the occupant that chooses to
indulge in a LEGAL product, unless of course government intends to start
paying the mortgage or rent payment upon the premises, or the moving
expense for businesses that choose to vacate.
Pure and simple, this is a litmus
test issue.
On many important problems facing us, I
disagree with Republican policies; but if Democrats are going to adopt
this type of monolithic and centralized posture that does anything
BUT embrace differences inherent in freedom of choice, you can rest
assured that not only will I be rethinking my party allegiance, but
doing all in my power to educate the electorate about this very real
threat of 'intolerance', caprice, and illogic that is threatening our
personal freedom of choice, certainly as imminent and directly as any
other threat currently posed to our liberties.
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