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Heart, lung and cancer groups have raised more than $1-million to get the issue on the ballot next year.
By CURTIS KRUEGER
© St. Petersburg Times, published October 23, 2001
PINELLAS PARK -- Worn red ashtrays line the counter and bluish smoke rises from nearly every booth. No one needs to say it out loud, because your nose and eyes inform you:
This doughnut shop is smoker-friendly.
But the atmosphere inside the Donut Connection would change dramatically if voters decide next year to take tobacco out of virtually every workplace in Florida.
In a first-of-a-kind effort, the American Lung, Cancer and Heart associations have joined forces and committed millions of dollars to push for an amendment to the Florida Constitution. It would outlaw smoking in just about every workplace except "stand-alone bars" and tobacco shops.
If voters approve this amendment, Florida restaurants no longer would have tables for customers who want to smoke while dining.
And nearly any other business with employees -- factories, warehouses, business offices or boutiques -- would be forced to ban smoking from inside their buildings, even if all the employees wanted to light up.
"That's going too far," said Lou Brown, 78, after finishing a cup of coffee and a small King Edward cigar at the Donut Connection at Park Boulevard and 49th Street.
Agreed manager Michael Perry, a nonsmoker: "I think that's the government getting too involved in our lives. I just think that people need the right to choose. That's really what free society is about."
But proponents say they're backing the amendment because employees also ought to have a right to choose, too. If they work in a place where smoking is allowed, then they have no choice but to ingest harmful secondhand smoke, proponents say.
"Over the past three decades, there has been a mountain of scientific and medical research that proves clearly and unambiguously that secondhand smoke is dangerous and deadly," said C.J. Drake, spokesman for Smoke-Free for Health, the nonprofit umbrella group formed to lead this campaign.
"We're not telling people they can't smoke. We're just telling people, please don't smoke in a place where it's likely to affect the health of a nonsmoker."
Even though restaurants have nonsmoking sections, they don't really protect workers or customers from smoke wafting across the room, Drake said.
"We feel that there is no such thing as a nonsmoking section in a restaurant, that the real choice is between smoking and secondhand smoking."
Like other states, Florida already has taken steps to protect nonsmokers. The state in 1985 passed a law confining smoking to designated smoking areas in most public places. It also established no-smoking areas in restaurants that seated 50 or more people. That rule was toughened by the Florida Legislature last year. Now, 65 percent of the seating in restaurants, regardless of seating capacity, must be devoted to nonsmoking sections.
With those laws, "Florida sort of falls right in the dead center of the nation," said Matt Myers, general counsel for the Washington-based Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, which is supporting the Florida effort.
With the proposed amendment and its strict regulation of smoking in public places and businesses, "this would put Florida in the top third of the country."
Proponents expect an attack from the tobacco industry and statewide business groups.
"This thing is going to be a David-and-Goliath struggle, and we're going to be David," said Drake, of Smoke-Free for Health.
State records show the group has raised more than $1.4-million, including more than $1-million from American Cancer Society groups, $200,000 from the American Lung Association and $133,333 from the American Heart Association. It has spent more than $400,000.
The coalition has collected more than 58,000 signatures from Floridians, but they need a total of 488,722 to get the issue placed on the ballot. Drake said he's confident that his group can accomplish that, partly through the use of paid workers collecting signatures.
Tobacco-maker Philip Morris USA confirmed it is monitoring the proposal, but spokesman Billy Abshaw said the tobacco manufacturer would not plunge into the debate at this early stage, when it's not even certain that the issue will appear on the ballot.
"There's no way we would make any determination or have any consideration until it gets much further along," he said.
Domenic Capobianco is one man who will be voting no, assuming the amendment gets on the ballot. He longingly remembers the days when his customers came into Complete Auto Parts on Fourth Street in St. Petersburg in the late afternoon to jawbone about race cars and how to fix up their engines. One day someone from the Health Department cited him for letting the guys smoke, so he had to ban cigarettes from the front counter.
"You can come in here from 4 to 6 now, and you won't find anybody," he said.