No smoking

THE ISSUE

With municipal elections coming up in area cities, now is the time for citizens to find out where candidates stand on moving ahead with a ban on smoking in restaurants, retail stores and other public places.

A proposal that would have banned smoking in restaurants, retail stores and most other public places passed the Alabama Senate this year, but failed to get through the House before the session ended. It clearly would have passed had it reached the top of the calendar of bills awaiting debate.

But there is no need to wait for legislative action for our area cities to move ahead with this progressive move. All it really takes is a municipal ordinance.

Someone suggested to us that a municipal election year is not the time to bring the issue up locally. We disagree.

We think now is the perfect time. As we head into the August municipal elections, we encourage voters to ask candidates how they stand on the issue. The overwhelming majority of area residents support such a ban, especially in restaurants, but our politicians have been slow to catch up with the community's thinking.

Twenty-six states have approved some sort of smoke-free statewide law, according to the American Cancer Society. It's a fact, not a theory, that nonsmokers can suffer and die from cancer, asthma and other diseases, caused or worsened by breaking secondhand smoke from other people's tobacco.

Florence, Muscle Shoals, Sheffield and Tuscumbia have shown a willingness to work together in recent years to bring jobs to our area. We don't know any reason why the four cities can't do the same to improve our quality of life.

If all four cities took the issue up at the same time, there would be no argument about one area's restaurants either being at a competitive advantage or disadvantage to another's.

The first step is finding out where area candidates for municipal office stand on the issue.

We intend to do that. We hope you will, too.