Ted Townsend Editor

Richmond council should stop smoking

I was waiting for a Richmond traffic signal to change the other day when I happened to glance down at the curb. It was filthy. For as far as I could see outside my car window, the curb was lined with old cigarette butts. Ever since the Workers' Compensation Board more or less universally banned smoking in public places, the butts have been piling up outdoors.

It's incredible to me that smokers continue to demand their basic human rights, when they have no regard for anything but themselves and their habit.

It's sort of symptomatic of the whole debate about smoking. Intransigence rules the day.

It's really quite simple. After years of tobacco companies' obfuscation, the facts are no longer in dispute. Smoking is bad for youÑand so is second-hand smoke. Non-smokers put up with it for decades. We were very tolerant. But we're not gonna take it any more.

The WCB's smoking ban may have been temporarily derailed by a technicality, but it will stick. Sooner, rather than later, the debate will be over and smokers will have to butt out.

Most British Columbians know it. The Workers' Compensation Board knows it. Many local governments know it. The only ones who don't know it are the shrinking cult of unrepentant smokers, the dim lights in the hospitality industry who continue to show remarkable business acumen by tying their future prospects to a (literally) dying clientele, and some weak-kneed members of Richmond council.

Surrey, Delta and Vancouver have already realized it. They have bylaws banning smoking in all public places. Backwards Richmond and Burnaby are the only communities in the immediate area that still allow smoking in some public places.

But some local councillors continue to stick their heads in the sand, listening to the vocal minority of businesses who insist they can't survive without smoking.

But those businesses have little credibility. They're being proven wrong again and again by the many hospitality businesses who have gone smoke free and are thriving.

The same goes for those who keep insisting that ventilation is the solution. Even the best ventilation systems can't air out a truly smoky room. Ask the folks who ran the Vancouver Press Club, which installed a series of progressively better and more expensive ventilation systems, but eventually went out of business, in part because people still found the club too smoky. And even if ventilation were the solution, why has the hospitality industry taken so long to see the light? They could have installed the technology years ago if they really cared about the health of their patrons or their customers.

Yes, the WCB and its supporters have been hard-headed about a smoking ban. But only because the smokers and their supporters have just as steadfastly refused to see the light. The time for compromise is in the past.

Richmond council should get off the fence and join its neighbouring cities in butting out this debate once and for all.