CC Minutes - 09/26/05 Mtg - Laserfiche WebLink

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th Tony Biglan , 2324 West 28 Avenue, provided a handout to the council. He related that he had been a witness in the US Justice Department lawsuit against tobacco companies for the past four years. He noted that the handout featured a chart of the 400,000 annual deaths due to cigarette smoking but it did not indicate the 50,000 people who died of diseases related to secondhand smoke. He said tobacco companies spent $15 billion marketing their products in the last year reported, $3 billion more than they did the previous year. He stated that the cigarette companies routinely and “lavishly” funded other groups such as state restaurant associations and convenience store owners to fight restrictions on the marketing of cigarettes. He said, faced with restrictions on its marketing to teens, it expanded its marketing through bars. He observed that the cigarette industry spends huge sums of money each year to counteract the bad impression that killing 450,000 people annually made. He reviewed the tobacco industry’s smoking prevention efforts and he provided written documentation to the council that the purported efforts to prevent smoking were actually focused on trying to influence opinion leaders to believe that the cigarette industry had become a good corporate citizen. He declared it had not. He said the activities of Phillip Morris locally illustrated the massive resources the company supplied to make it safe to market cigarettes. He stressed that Eugene was a college town and reiterated that the new massive marketing strategy was directed toward college students. Dr. Sarah Hendrickson , 1036 Adams Street, Lane County Public Health Officer, commended the council for approving the smoking ordinance in 2000. She underscored that the ordinance declared that employers were required to provide for all employees a place to work in which employees were not exposed to the smoking of others. She noted that after the Eugene ordinance was adopted, the tobacco industry helped to pass a law that prevented other counties and jurisdictions in Oregon from doing this “same wonderful thing” for worker protection. Dr. Hendrickson recalled that five years earlier, doctors and health care workers provided the same testimony as the council heard at the present meeting. She said the council had done a good job and passed the right law. Since then, she averred, the worker protection goals had been undermined and, under pressure, administrators made a rule that 25 percent of outdoor smoking areas should be exposed to the air. She stated that there was no scientific justification for this rule. She thought the 25 percent rule had been extended far beyond smoking porches for bar customers and pictures submitted to the council had demonstrated this. Dr. Hendrickson asserted that the complaint-driven process put employees at risk of losing their jobs and the entity that took the complaints, Lane County Public Health Department, had lost its enforcement ability when the State lost its tobacco money and had lost its focus with the tragic events of September 11. She cautioned the council against codifying a definition of the outdoors as changing that ordinance could open it to complaints against the original law. She recommended leaving it in an administrative rule. She suggested percentages be left out, as anything codified could be used as a nation-wide example and even 50 percent air exposure was not ideal. Wendy Watson , 33604 Indian Drive, Coburg, stated that she worked in the bar industry for 15 years. She recalled that five years earlier she collected over 100 signatures from restaurant and bar workers in the city of Eugene that supported the idea of being able to work in a smoke-free environment. She said this time she had collected interviews of workers, owners, and their family members, copies of which she provided to the council. She quoted Dave Lawrence, bar manager of Chantrelles, who said the ordinance had a positive influence on his health and a negligible effect on his income. She related that he felt smoking rooms were chiefly a way to circumvent the law. She also quoted Jeff Morganthaler, who worked at the Vets Club, Tiny Tavern, and Black Forest, who thought rooms not open to the open air became nothing more than enclosed smoking boxes, defeating the purpose for which they were set up. She said he also felt business had improved because more non-smokers were going out. She thanked the City Council for taking care of the MINUTES—Eugene City Council September 26, 2005 Page 16 Regular Session