If you haven’t e-mailed your council member yet, now is the time to do so. If you don’t live in DC but you frequent DC bars and restaurants, your voice should still be heard. Let them know you’ll take your business elsewhere.

If the DC Council is willing the hear testimony from folks who live outside of DC about the benefits of a smoking ban, as they did at the public hearing, they should listen to non-DC residents who actually live in the area when they say a smoking ban is bad.

Of all the research I’ve done on ETS related illness, my favorite fact so far comes from the CDC’s "Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report" newsletter from the week of July 28, 1989. The topic? Trends in lung cancer. One of the findings?

"Peak incidence and mortality rates due to lung cancer lag behind the peak exposure to tobacco by approximately 35 years."

Now I happen to find this fact fascinating. Mostly I find it fascinating because every time Kwame Brown grandstands in front of a camera and moans, "People are dyyyying," what he means is that people are dying based on exposure to smoke that began 35 years ago, when you could smoke in the office, on an airplane, in an elevator (Carl Bernstein, I’m talking to you!), in a doctor’s office, in a movie theater–everywhere! That problem has largely taken care of itself. Baseline exposure is much lower today than it was in 1970. There are fewer smokers smoking in fewer places. In 1970, the year of peak exposure for folks who have lung cancer now, 37% of all Americans smoked. Now that number is 21%. Back it up just 5 years to 1965, and smoking has declined by a whopping 50%.

Surely Kwame Brown doesn’t mean to imply that workers in bars and restaurants, with baseline exposure at practically zero and smokers making up only a fifth of the population (actually a little lower in DC), are dying now because of their jobs, does he?

If you think that’s what Kwame Brown is trying to say, why not give his office a call and set him straight (202-724-8174), or send an e-mail his way. Let him know that emergency legislation isn’t necessary to solve a problem that no longer exists.

It looks like in spite of having 9 council members who support various ban proposals, they’re at least wise enough not to pass it as emergency legislation.

That’s a good thing, insomuch as there are any silver linings in this sad tale. Businesses would have no time to prepare for the change if it passed as emergency legislation. On the other hand, a summer full of negotiations leaves some wiggle room for folks seeking compromise. And it leaves time for bar and restaurant workers to mobilize meaningfully.

Check out the whole story in today’s WaPo.

-Brooke Oberwetter 

If you’re interested in joining us in fighting against the DC smoking ban, save the date on Friday, July 8. There will be opportunities to show your opposition to the ban, and plenty of ways to volunteer as well!

-Brooke Oberwetter 

Our comments are acting funny–they seem to be rejecting comments based on content, which isn’t supposed to happen. We’re working on correcting it.

For all of you paranoid crazies out there who think that we’re targeting ban proponents, we’re not: one of my own comments was rejected this morning. So chill out.

UPDATE: Our gracious webmaster (who designed and maintains this "slick" site as his donation to the cause) tells me that the comments problem should be solved. If it happens again, let me know by e-mail–I often go several days without reading the comments and I won’t see it there.

-Brooke Oberwetter 

WaPo Business section today on how the smoking ban could put hookah bars out of business.

The phenomenon appears counterintuitive in an age when the number of adult cigarette smokers in this country keeps dropping, concern about the health risks of smoking keeps mounting, and the number of localities pushing for smoke-free bars and restaurants keeps growing. One of the most recent to do so is the District, which is considering a smoking ban that threatens to stymie a business lucrative enough that the Egypt-born Asal plans to franchise the concept. "The future of these [hookah] bars is uncertain," said D.C. Council member Jim Graham (D-Ward 1), who represents Adams Morgan and the U Street corridor. "Unless specific action is taken to exempt these businesses, and they should be exempted, I think they will be at risk." Customers, many of whom are getting their first taste of the hookah, appear oblivious to the debate and more enthralled by the tradition.

Tough. Why should they be exempt from the logic of the banners, who fight for the rights of workers everywhere, whether the workers particularly want them to or not? What if the only job you can get is waiting tables in a hookah bar?

And who the hell does Jim Graham think he is? "Cigar bars may live, because I’ve divined that cigars are integral to their essence. Hookah bars may live as well–it’s part of a unique and magical cultural tradition. But at the Black Cat and the Raven, smoking’s just smoking, and you shouldn’t be allowed to do it."

1. Volunteer to help with our upcoming projects. Send an e-mail to brooke@bantheban.org for more information.

2. Donate via Paypal right now. It’s fast and it’s easy. $20, $50, $100: Whatever you can spare.

3. E-mail your councilmember. This is so important. If you haven’t done it already, do it TODAY!

-Brooke Oberwetter 

I’d say the testimony last week was fairly evenly divided between ban opponents and advocates, but of all the advocates, I saw only one bar or restaurant employee testify that he needed "saving." My suspiscion is that he hasn’t actually looked for another job. Christopher Hitchens gives us his take on the proceedings in this op-ed in yesterday’s DC Examiner. If you can’t read the whole thing, take at least this with you:

Testifying recently at the City Council hearings on the ban, I was overwhelmed by a sense of depression. Witness after witness and council member after council member kept up the mantra that smoking is unhealthy and secondhand smoking also. We who oppose the ban have already taken this point. That’s why we are for separation of smokers from nonsmokers, to be determined by the choices made by hosts and hostesses. But our opponents refuse even to see, let alone to grant, our point. This is because their real interest is in government-sponsored behavior modification. For the rest of the time, "diversity" is a near-magic term for these people: It vanishes, though, when it clashes with their own prejudice. In a few months, it seems, the prohibitionists will have managed to destroy something that has no value to them and which cannot be measured in revenues: the right to create an atmosphere of one’s own devising, in which tongues are loosened and barriers to conversation broken down. This was the atmosphere — rich in tobacco and other fumes — of the taverns and coffee-houses where the American revolution matured. Instead, we are to have a mirthless, risk-free Disneyland. I trust it makes its advocates very happy.

- Brooke Oberwetter

Read the rest of this entry »

We’ve added what are essentially our positions on the various issues in this deabte on our "About Us" page. Be sure to check it out.

-Brooke Oberwetter 

From the AP:

Seventy-two years after prohibition was repealed, one lawmaker member suggested Tuesday that alcohol once again be off limits in the bars and restaurants of the nation’s capital. Councilwoman Carol Schwartz, R-At Large, introduced her bill in response to a proposed ban on smoking in those same establishments. Her proposal imitates the arguments for a smoking ban, citing health concerns, worker safety and the nuisance of drinkers. "I never thought I could ban drinking just because I didn’t like it, but now I know I can," Schwartz said. "The impending smoking ban has empowered me." Several hours later, Schwartz pulled the bill, saying she had made her point. She hoped the incident would serve as a "wake-up call that once you start toying with people’s liberties, you never know where it might end." [...] Schwartz said she wouldn’t allow the smoking legislation out of her committee unless there’s a compromise. She argued that "if government is going to start banning legal substances" there’s a whole list of things to ban - starting with alcohol. "Let’s be honest, people are dying," Schwartz said, mocking arguments from other council members on the smoking ban. "Pure and simple, drinking kills." Fellow council members Kathy Patterson and Jim Graham rolled their eyes and shook their heads. Schwartz rattled off statistics from Mothers Against Drunk Driving that three in 10 Americans will be involved in an alcohol-related crash. She said the Bureau of Justice Statistics reported 40 percent of all crimes are committed under the influence of alcohol. "People are still free to drink at home - for now," Schwartz said. But she said beverages at bars and restaurants should be limited to "tea, sodas and milk. "And if the drinkers insist on drinking alcohol - and they will - they can just step outside on sidewalks with their flasks and drink." When Schwartz was finished, Council Chair Linda Cropp referred the bill to committee, calling "a very thought-provoking piece."

God only knows what Cropp meant.

-Justin Logan