The Pell City City Council at a recent meeting heard from the Tobacco Prevention and Control Coordinator for the Alabama Health Department who addressed the dangers of secondhand smoke in our city and asked the council to consider passing a non-smoking ordinance for public restaurants.
Many understand that the freedoms that we enjoy within our city are protected less by additional laws and more by the absence of restrictive laws thus allowing the citizenry to voluntarily permit the marketplace to shape the desires of its citizens along with voluntarily sanctioned restrictions.I applaud our city business owners for voluntarily responding to the desires of the citizenry and especially applaud our restaurant owners for selflessly attending to varying dining preferences such as providing smoking/non-smoking areas. Their continuing success will reflect the true desire of the marketplace (citizenry) sans the need for any dictatorial law. Let's let it work.
Contrarily, our citizenry understands the need for more restrictive ordinances relating to safety and health (smoking) within our municipal building wherein we don't enjoy the luxury of choice in where we would like to conduct our official business (pay our taxes). This is appropriately accomplished through our election of officials who will determine those restrictions (laws) that best serve the citizenry.
Addressing restrictions (laws) concerning the safety, health and welfare of our citizens of minor age require special attention by our adult citizenry. A recent concern of note in the education sector is the addressing of unhealthy school lunches and vending items presently available to our children. Necessarily, the kids' marketplace can't be allowed to prevail - heh. So as adults, we have to make the unpopular decisions that protect our kids.
I guess that in the scheme of all things before our citizenry and its leaders to be resolved, if our priorities are in proper order, we'll know without question , for example, that obesity of our unwary minor children is a much greater threat to the health of our citizenry than secondhand smoke.
Armond "Si" Simmons
Pell City, AL 35128
104 Wadsworth Lane
205 338 7378
psysim@coosahs.net