Letter to the Editor, Arkansas City Traveler, Thursday, February 11, 2010
Last week our legislature's House Committee
on Health and Human Services introduced a bill that purports to
deal with the smoking problem in Kansas, and the governor has
said he will veto it. Good for him.
The proposed measure allows smoking in bars and restaurants if
they have a separate "smoking section" or if they ban
anyone under eighteen. This feckless bill is a sheep in wolf's
clothing, pretending to attack a bad situation but in fact making
it worse by repealing effective local ordinances already on the
books in some of the more enlightened Kansas jurisdictions.
Representative Brenda Landwehr of Wichita, who is attempting to
foist this thing on us, should be ashamed. She wishes to perpetuate
the status quo, in which workers are required to submit themselves
to poison gas attack as a condition of their employment.
If legislators really do muster the chutzpah to present
this monstrosity to the governor, I hope and trust he will slay
it with his veto pen forthwith. It is long past time for the legislature
to abandon foot-dragging and dithering on this issue and pass
a law bringing relief to workers and customers in all public
places.