Smoking Ban

CITY HALL — Smokers will have at least one more year to light up in Glendale before a citywide smoking ban approved by the City Council on Tuesday is enforced. The anti-smoking ordinance, which officially hits the books Nov. 10, bans smoking on all city property, including parks. People will also be prohibited from smoking on all publicly accessible private property, including the common areas of apartment complexes, parking lots, service lines and shopping malls, such as the Marketplace and Americana at Brand.

GLENDALE — An ordinance requiring store owners to have a city permit to sell tobacco products is nearly complete and promises to light up a grass-roots movement for a citywide smoking ban. The new permit would be in addition to the state license vendors must have and is meant to cut down on tobacco sales to minors. This comes after a 2006 study that found 24% of Glendale retailers were "ready and willing" to sell cigarettes and similar products to children under 18. Tobacco retailers would be required to pay a proposed $250 annual fee to maintain the permit, which could be revoked if retailers are caught three times in five years selling to minors, according to the licensing ordinance, which is scheduled to go before the City Council on Aug. 28. The ordinance represents two years of coordination between a coalition of health and youth advocates, the city, local hospitals and business owners, said Guadulesa Rivera, community advocate for Glendale Adventist Medical Center, which has devoted thousands of dollars toward studying the issue and developing the proposal.

CITY HALL — A proposed set of citywide smoking restrictions that sparked a political firestorm and drew a line between health advocates and business owners over the role of government comes back to the City Council tonight. The restrictions would ban smoking in nearly all public spaces, including parks, the Americana at Brand, the Marketplace, common areas, parking lots and structures and all city-owned property. The ordinance is expected to be introduced for a weeklong public review before it faces a final City Council vote next week.

NORTHWEST GLENDALE ? The Pasadena Weekly reporter who touched off a furor three weeks ago, when it came to light that his June 26 article had incorrectly attributed comments about Armenian smokers to Mayor John Drayman, appeared live on cable television Thursday to defend his work. The reporter, Carl Kozlowski, was unassuming in his defense on ?The Larry Zarian Show? on Thursday while discussing an error in which he incorrectly attributed to Drayman comments Councilman Dave Weaver allegedly made about Armenian smokers and the influence they may have in opposing Glendale?

Smoking ban: solution or drag? Regarding “Smoking ban goes back to council,” Tuesday: I do not want the council to pass the present smoking ban. I had a father who at 75 died from smoking. We had a family member who was in the RAF and was offered all the cigarettes he wanted, and was told by doctors that he would die if he did not stop smoking. At a poolside party, he died at age 52 with a cigarette in each hand. I promised my father all his life that I would never smoke.

According to an article in the July 31 edition of the Glendale News-Press (“Smoking ban still unsettled”), a few Glendale restaurant owners complained to the City Council that an outdoor restaurant smoking ban would push potential clients out of the city when a depressed economy is already impacting their bottom lines. The complaints were predictable. In any group of business owners, there will always be those few who act only from fear and selfishness. But those restaurant owners’ assumptions are wrong.

This letter is in response to Scott Lowe (“One day we’ll all have health care,” March 25) and Gary Durrett’s comments (“Writer needs to quit finger-wagging,” March 25). Have these two gentlemen stopped to consider the cost of health care? I don’t think so. The hardest hit will be seniors, no matter the spin. Also, health care is not a right . Where does everyone get that idea and misinformation? JANET LANGLEY La Crescenta   Write to college officials instead In reply to Robert Morrison’s piece in the Glendale News-Press on March 19, “Where’s officials’ response on smoking?

This letter is in response to Scott Lowe (“One day we’ll all have health care,” March 25) and Gary Durrett’s comments (“Writer needs to quit finger-wagging,” March 25). Have these two gentlemen stopped to consider the cost of health care? I don’t think so. The hardest hit will be seniors, no matter the spin. Also, health care is not a right . Where does everyone get that idea and misinformation? JANET LANGLEY La Crescenta   Write to college officials instead In reply to Robert Morrison’s piece in the Glendale News-Press on March 19, “Where’s officials’ response on smoking?

GLENDALE — When resident Stephen Brown learned last year that the city had enacted citywide smoking restrictions, he looked forward to sitting outside at his favorite coffee shop and breathing in the fresh air. “For the past year I have been looking forward to the day when the patio will be smoke free so that I may enjoy the outdoors. That day has not yet arrived,” he said. The city’s smoking restrictions took effect last November with an emphasis on public education before the officials started hard enforcement.

What a pleasant surprise. Last week, as I followed the usual trail of cigarette butts and trash between the Glendale Community College Parking Lot A to the track, there it was — a sign for a smoke-free campus petition. Finally, someone decided to take action. I hope that there were many signers, and that the college administrators and trustees finally pay attention to this serious concern. Although I have written about smoking on the Glendale Community College campus several times before, it seems worth writing again because it’s obvious that smokers aplenty are still fouling the air. Everyone agrees, except maybe for a few deranged smokers, that smoking is very likely to lead to a premature and unpleasant death.

Is city’s integrity going up in smoke? In regards to the uproar stemming from the recent smoking ban (“Smoking bans linked to fewer heart attacks,” Saturday), I simply say this: If you, the city of Glendale, are going to tell businesses and private citizens that they no longer can smoke outside in “your” city, then stop allowing stores to sell cigarettes in “your” city and immediately cease accepting any tax money or revenues associated with tobacco.

DOWNTOWN — A government study showing that a partial smoking ban had a dramatic effect on reducing heart attacks in a Colorado town may have implications for Glendale and Burbank, where similar ordinances have been passed in recent years, experts said. The study, published Dec. 30 by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, was the first conducted over a period as long as three years and showed a sustained decrease in hospital admissions for heart attacks, said Christine Nevin-Woods, the lead researcher on the study and the director of the Pueblo City-County Health Department in Pueblo, Colo.

With an economy in the doldrums and a recently enacted ban on smoking taking shape in Glendale, Tom Williams realizes that the Brand Cigar Club faces significant challenges as it navigates the region’s choppy waters. But Williams, the retail manager of the shop that reopened Nov. 1 after a nine-month hiatus, is poised to capture a significant portion of the disaffected smoking population who are now precluded from lighting up in most public places around the city. “We have the biggest population of Armenians in this country, and they smoke,” Williams said.

CITY HALL — Smokers will have at least one more year to light up in Glendale before a citywide smoking ban approved by the City Council on Tuesday is enforced. The anti-smoking ordinance, which officially hits the books Nov. 10, bans smoking on all city property, including parks. People will also be prohibited from smoking on all publicly accessible private property, including the common areas of apartment complexes, parking lots, service lines and shopping malls, such as the Marketplace and Americana at Brand.

SMOKING BAN The City Council on Tuesday is expected to approve a comprehensive, citywide smoking ban after all five members last week said they would vote to support the ordinance. Their pledges came after yet another public hearing on the ever-changing smoking ordinance since it was first introduced in June. Since then, public debate, hearings and intense lobbying from the public health and private business sectors have tempered what was initially an all-out smoking ban. Under the draft ordinance, smoking would be prohibited on all city property, including parks.