At this Monday's meeting, the
Shorewood Village Board declined to vote on what would have been a comprehensive smoking ban in the Village of Shorewood. Instead, they referred it back to the Community and Business Relations Committee, giving them 60 days to come up with a new version of the ordinance. Exactly what changes the new version of the ordinance is intended to encompass was not at all clear, nor was how exactly the committee was to make the next version more palatable.
Arguments for and against the ban were roughly the same as they have been since I started paying attention to the issue, almost a year ago now. Do not put our business owners on an island vs. protect public health, and so forth.
As I have stated before, I would be happy with it if the Board decided not to vote on the issue. What I do not like is sending the ordinance back to committee for a unspecified reasons and an unspecified set of revisions. The ordinance currently in front of the board is the result of more than a year and half of committee work, listening sessions, surveys, data analysis, research, discussion, etc. If the current version of the ordinance is not satisfactory to the board, what is to say the new version the committee will create in the next 60 days will be any better? The new version certainly will not contain the same level of public input as the current version, which has been informed by months and months of painstaking research and discussion.
In my opinion, given the lack of unity in Shorewood on this issue, and the apparent total lack of interest in the ban on the part of other North Shore communities, to create a ban now would be ineffectual to the point of being silly. If the goal is to protect public health, it is hard to see how creating a tiny smoke free area in the middle of a vast metropolis will have that effect. The tidal wave of interest in this subject has not materialized, as the supporters of the ban were predicting. Instead, Shorewood is left in the position of voting ourselves onto a tiny, no-smoking island.
In my heart of hearts, I wish smoking were illegal in all public places always and everywhere. But given how things have progressed on this issue in this time and this place, it's time to drop it.
Quotable Quotes1. Trustee Hanewall: "The whole purpose of this was to protect public health. To some extent, to protect people from themselves."
2. Trustee Hickey: "After all the work we have done, [not voting] seems a little anti-climactic."
