Conscious Choice: Help Aldermen Burke & Smith Enact a Smoking Ban

March 2004 | Editor’s Note

Help Aldermen Burke & Smith Enact a Smoking Ban

Turns out, just as we go to print, smoking-ban activists in Arlington Heights were defeated in their efforts to land a no-smoking law for all public places in that northwest suburb. So one of those activists, Aaron Doeppers, who kicks off this month’s cover story on the smoking-ban trend, needs to continue to vigilantly protect his four-year-old from the 69 cancer-causing chemicals lurking in second-hand smoke that’s rife in restaurants in his town.

But despite the defeat in Arlington Heights, Doeppers recognizes Chicago is the lynchpin in making the real difference that could well lead to a statewide smoking-ban. "The only problem is [Mayor] Daley seems to be standing in the way," he says. "He’s not really against us or for us. He just wishes the issue would go away."

But the issue shouldn’t go away when polling shows that 70 percent of Chicago voters favor a smoke-free ordinance. And according to Joel Africk, the executive director for the American Lung Association’s Chicago office, that number is not just lakefront liberals — residents on the city’s north, south and west sides are clamoring for it as well.

Africk points out that both New York State and Massachusetts went smoke-free once their major cities, The Big Apple and Boston took the plunge. He believes if Chicagoans could engineer a ban, then Illinois wouldn’t be far behind.

Judging from what happened in New York and Massachusetts, Africk contends that the restaurant associations are huge players in this game. While they lobby hard against smoking bans, once a ban is enacted in the big cities, the restaurant associations do a 180 and shift their preference to statewide bans. The reasoning is simple: if Chicago, for instance, went smoke-free, the city’s restaurants would be in a tizzy over the possibility of diners taking their business to suburban eateries where they could light up. Hence, the push would be made to take the whole state smoke-free.

Aldermen Edward Burke and Ed Smith have been tireless supporters for a smoking ban in Chicago. Both have pending legislation parked in committee because they can’t muster the 26 votes in the City Council that would put a ban over the top.

But you and I now have a clear-cut way of making our voices heard in order to nudge our city council members! The Lung Association’s Joel Africk has agreed to automatically send your letter in support of a smoke-free Chicago to the Mayor and all of the Aldermen. All you have to do is log-on to www.lungchicago.org, sign-up and click on the "Support Smoke-Free Chicago" button and an "advocacy message" in your name will be on its way (a lá Moveon.org).

With an outpouring of support in this manner, we can convince our Aldermen to pass a smoking ban. And with this momentum, how could the Mayor (of the emerging "Greenest City in America!") resist going with the flow when his city’s residents are speaking so loud and clear?

Inside this Issue

New Section: Choice Health will be addressing the whole person...we’ll be talking about clean food, supplements, alternative medicine, exercise and mind empowerment. Check it out.
— Rebecca Ephraim

Correction:

In February’s cover story featuring an interview with U.S. Senate candidate Barack Obama, a transcription error was made that indicated he did not support removing Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein from office. We regret the error and wish to correct and clarify his stand. Obama’s exact words on the day we interviewed him (December 16, 2003) are thus:

"I was very clear about [this] a year ago, and [now] we speak two days after Saddam Hussein was captured. What I do think is that Saddam Hussein being removed from office is a net positive for the Iraqi people."

For more details see Obama’s Letter to the Editor below and his Web site, www.obamaforillinois.com.

To the Editor:

I want to thank Conscious Choice for my cover story (February 2004, "Barack Obama, Will Illinois Deliver a Progressive U.S. Senator?"). However, I want to correct a comment of mine where I am quoted as saying "I do not think that removing Saddam from office is a net positive for the Iraqi people."

I have always maintained that Saddam Hussein is a brutal dictator. I also believed that the removal of Saddam Hussein from power is a net benefit to the world and the people of Iraq. However, I strongly objected to the use of a pre-emptive strike against a country that posed no imminent threat to the U.S.

No clear link between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein has ever been established, nor were there any weapons of mass destruction to be found. Yet as a consequence of our decision to act unilaterally, over 500 American soldiers and countless numbers of Iraqi civilians have needlessly lost their lives and the already fragile Iraqi social and political infrastructure has collapsed as a result of the war.

I strongly believe that the same result could have been reached with less bloodshed, less cost to the American taxpayers and greater legitimacy for both U.S. action and a new Iraqi government. Despite my opposition, I recognize that we cannot simply pull out now that we occupy that country. We must work to transform the occupation into an international effort, making it clear that the U.S. welcomes the help of our allies and friends who have an important stake in a stable democratic Iraq.
— IL State Senator Barack Obama (D)
Candidate for U.S. Senate

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