The Shawnee Dispatch / State should step in

Archive for Wednesday, May 13, 2009

May 13, 2009

To the editor:

Sixty-nine restaurants and bars including a retirement center and hardware store have purchased smoking licenses in Kansas City, Kan., that allow businesses to expose their employees and patrons to the dangers of secondhand smoke.

This poor public policy is a clear example for Kansas legislators on the need for uniform statewide smoking restrictions. It is government’s responsibility to protect the safety of our food, our water and our air. In the absence of state leadership, local ordinances that provide loophole exemptions for restaurants, bars and private clubs create unequal protections across the state and a mishmash of confusing regulation for businesses.

All Kansans deserve the right to breathe clean indoor air in public places and workplaces. For that reason it’s time for the state to set a floor of basic secondhand smoke protections for all workers and the public.

Set a floor. Set a standard. And set the pace for Kansas to get onboard with 24 other states that now provide protections from second hand smoke in public places and workplaces.

Joyce Morrison

Clean Air Kansas

Topeka

Point of View

Do you think the state should do more to help businesses near K-7 and Johnson Drive as an interchange is constructed?

Given the time the state has had to prepare, I don’t think completing the access road before starting/ closing Johnson Drive is an unreasonable request from these businesses or those of us who patronize them.

— Tiffany Bohm

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