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Cigarette Led To Alameda Coast Guard Housing Fire 

Fire investigators Wednesday found that a discarded cigarette caused a two-alarm fire at two U.S. Coast Guard housing units in Alameda Tuesday night, according to fire Chief Dave Kapler.

The fire at 3064 and 3062 Kansas City Drive was initially reported just after 9 p.m., Kapler said. . . .

A cigarette discarded in the area of an exterior deck appears to have started the fire, which has been ruled accidental, Kapler said. Wind may have helped the still-burning cigarette start the fire and contributed to its spread, according to Kapler.

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LETTER: VETERANS CLUBS--Keep them smoke-free 

I was in the Marine Corps during the Korean War in 1950. After my discharge I joined Everette McClay Post 1296 in Bloomington. As time went on and we became aware of the dangers of secondhand smoke, I stopped going to the club because the smoke was so bad.

We now have a smoking ban for the entire state of Minnesota. Yet there is a bill at the State Capitol to exempt veterans clubs.

I strongly object to this bill. I for one would stop going again. We need to bring new members and their children to our veterans clubs, and they do not want to be exposed to secondhand smoke.

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BASU: Logic takes detour with smoking-ban exemptions  

Jasper County residents this week voted overwhelmingly against legalizing casino gambling in Newton. Good for them. But with this law in place, could communities like Newton be pressured into allowing casinos just so smokers have a place to gather? And how would that contribute to the health of the community?

If the message is that the law is necessary to protect people's health, including employees', then the question has to be: Doesn't the state care about the health of gamblers and veterans and workers in those facilities?

Before Culver puts pen to paper on this one, he should be able to answer that question - and not just from the standpoint of politics, but of sound public policy.

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Local Clubs Struggle with State Smoking Ban 

"Most Friday nights, the place is empty by 7:30," Club Manager Bob Bartley says, shaking his head.

Like hundreds of other private clubs throughout Ohio, the American Legion is struggling with the effects of the state's smoking ban. Officials at several local clubs say the ban, which has been in effect since Dec. 7, 2006, is threatening to put many organizations out of business for good.

As Bartley explained, the American Legion in Tipp City is currently operating on about 25 percent of the revenue they were in 1998. "We had to reduce our bartenders' hours," Bartley said. "When I first took over we had eight employees, now we have two."

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Under proposed law 19-year-olds couldn't buy tobacco 

A law that would bar Onondaga County stores from selling tobacco to people under 19 cleared the legislative health committee today.

The full Legislature will consider the law at its May 5 session. Under the proposed law, businesses caught selling tobacco, herbal cigarettes, rolling papers or pipes to those under 19 could be fined $300 to $1,000 for the first offense, $500 to $1,500 for subsequent violations. Merchants would need to see identification of anyone who looks younger than 25.

State law already bans sales to people 18 or younger.

The Onondaga Tobacco 19 Law sponsored by Robert Warner, R-Van Buren, and Lovie Winslow, D-Syracuse, is identical to the version passed last year but vetoed by then County Executive Nick Pirro. Pirro complained the law did not include a funding source, and he agreed with veterans groups that 18-year-old service members should be allowed to buy tobacco.

Since then, the sponsors have determined that the state will help fund enforcement.

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Giving GIs a puff of home  

Sometime this month, an Army captain in Iraq named Ryan Main will receive a small white box mailed from a shop just a few home runs from Coors Field.

When Main opens it, he'll find 25 premium cigars, fragrant with Dominican tobacco, hand-rolled and shipped by a total stranger.

The stranger's name is Clay Carl ton. Whatever his other claims to fame, one stands out: He's the only Coloradan holding both a barber's license and a federal cigar manufacturing license.

"We really don't know who we're sending these cigars to," Carlton said. "They generally just go to an Army Post Office address. But that's fine. We know the troops enjoy them. They've sent us letters from the field."

Carlton owns Palma Cigar Co., housed in a brick building at 2207 Larimer St. The one-man tobacco operation is in the front, his two-chair barber shop in back. . . .

There are few if any pleasures soldiering in Iraq, but Carlton is bringing a bit of comfort to the troops, one cigar at a time.

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• The Rev. Gary Wachtel leading a smoking ban protest parade in Olney 

Wachtel is organizing a smoking ban protest parade at 10 a.m. Saturday.

Wachtel invites smoking advocates to join the parade route, which will run from the 600 block of East Main Street west to the Richland County Courthouse.

Parade advocates hope to encourage state lawmakers to repeal Illinois' three-month-old smoking ban. . . .

"We will be smoking during the parade," Wachtel said.

To be legal, a smoker is forced to walk in the street on Main Street, Wachtel said.

"You can't be on the sidewalk because you're within 15 feet of the business's doors," Wachtel said.

Wachtel said he has received "pretty good support" from residents of Southern Illinois. . . .

Wachtel does not pastor a church, but he serves as chaplain for the local American Legion.

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American Legion outlaws smoking at Post  

One of the last bastions of indoor smoking has disappeared in Adams as American Legion Post 160 abolished the practice a month ago.

"We had been kicking this idea around for a long time," said Post Commander Ralph Swartzer. "Once they started banning it in different communities and towns we looked at it. Then they banned it in bars and eventually the consensus was in favor of social change. We had more non-smokers than smokers anyway because of the health issues and the fact that people are more educated and worldly."

When the post sent out a postcard survey to all 292 members, the response was 2:1 in favor of the ban, but it wasn't without consequence. . . .

Selectmen and post member Donald Sommer said he had hoped the board of health would take the decision out of their hands.

"In fact we went to the Board of Health a couple of times and asked them to get smoking knocked off in all establishments that have a commercial liquor license," he said. "We have a commercial license, not a club license. They refused to do that."

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Tracking a Marine Lost at Home  

A week after Eric W. Hall disappeared into the woods of Southwest Florida, his mother stood in a parking lot overlooking the Gulf of Mexico. She had asked for volunteers. Would they come?

Becky Hall’s son had experienced a flashback, fleeing a relative’s home after sensing that Iraqi insurgents had surrounded him. He was 24, a former Marine corporal from Indiana who had been medically discharged after a bomb ripped through his leg. Here, among the retirees and strip malls, he was a stranger. . . .

Mr. Hall, 51, a maintenance supervisor at a local courthouse, stayed home during the search in case Eric Hall appeared. He arrived in Florida only after his son’s body had been identified. And with him came waves of grief.

On a hot morning in mid-March, he and his son Justin, 27, who flew from his Navy post in Virginia, visited for the first time the site where Eric Hall had died. They were accompanied by Mrs. Hall, Mr. McCarthy and Mr. Shaughnessy, who explained what he and the authorities thought had happened.

“I think Eric came here to collect his thoughts and smoked a cigarette, and that started a fire,” Mr. Shaughnessy said. “He climbed into the pipe for cover.”

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'Medium' 2-parter blends cases, dreams and reality 

TONIGHT'S MUST-SEE II: "Frontline: Bush's War," 9-11:30 p.m., WTVS-TV, Channel 56, PBS.

After the Sept. 11 attacks, this documentary says, opposite styles fought for President Bush's attention.

There was the quiet approach of Dick Cheney or Colin Powell. There was the commotion of Donald Rumsfeld or Gen. Tommy Franks. "He drinks maybe 15 cups of coffee a day, smokes two packs of cigarettes ... he's running on adrenalin and caffeine and nicotine," Gen. Michael DeLong says of Franks.

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• DOD anti-tobacco campaign invades military markets 

The Department of Defense isn't just blowing smoke about its tobacco cessation campaign. "Quit Tobacco. Make Everyone Proud" is making its presence felt with enthusiastic marketing initiatives in 13 U.S. metropolitan markets containing 28 major military installations.

The campaign positions military members as role models, particularly to children, as a motivation to quit using tobacco. On the "Quit Tobacco" Web site, users can get information; develop a personalized plan for quitting; play games; listen to podcasts; connect to Federal, military, state, local and on-line cessation programs; and communicate privately with a trained cessation counselor seven days a week from 8:30 p.m.-2:30 a.m. (EDT).

"Kicking the habit can be tougher than a lot of people think," said Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs Dr. S. Ward Casscells in a recent blog on www.health.mil. "Aside from the obvious nicotine dependency, psychological barriers may be just as difficult to overcome . The 'Quit Tobacco. Make Everyone Proud' campaign is designed to help servicemembers quit by reminding them to do it for themselves and the people they love."

The social marketing initiative for the tobacco cessation campaign targets 702,000 military active duty people

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LETTER: Smokers rule roost at Iowa Veterans Home 

Upon entering life here at the Iowa Veterans Home it became very apparent to me that residents, staff and employees rule the roost when it comes to smoking anywhere they please and have very little regard for the feelings and health of people who have serious breathing problems. . . .

With powerful vet organizations controlling the purse strings and backing the tobacco industry, veterans who smoke at IVH feel protected from any restrictions that might creep into the picture by way of smoking bans and the like. However, the tobacco squeeze is definitely on the agenda in the state legislature, but excludes the Iowa Veterans Home. Why? Smoke is just as harmful and dangerous at IVH as anywhere, maybe more so given the area equation. Smoke is much more concentrated in the area of IVH as anywhere. It is true that veterans are deserving of a debt of gratitude for the time spent in the service of their country, but the country does not owe them a living and vets should not be given special privileges when it comes to matters of one’s health. . . .

That is “secondhand smoke.” Why should smoke-free people be victims of the smoker’s bad habit? This is the reason I have been pushing for designated smoking huts and placing them away from heavy traffic.

I will continue to condemn tobacco because I remember all too well the consequences of the addiction in every breath I take.

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Troops may get drug felon's stogies 

Cigar-smoking Michigan military people in the Middle East may soon be puffing away at seized stogies, courtesy of the Oakland County Narcotics Enforcement Team.

Drug officers seized 1,500 hand-wrapped cigars during a traffic stop of a convicted drug felon in January along M-59 in eastern Oakland County. The cigars, which include counterfeit copies of much-coveted and embargoed Cuban cigars, were obtained under forfeiture laws. Now Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard hopes to ship them off to Michigan troops.

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• Mich. troops overseas to get seized cigars 

Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard plans to have Michigan National Guard members and Reservists help him incinerate some evidence found in a recent drug bust.

About 1,500 cigars recovered from a marijuana dealer will be torched, one at a time, by Michigan military members serving overseas.

"Rather than have them destroyed in an incinerator, it would make more sense to give them to our heroes deployed across the globe," Bouchard said Thursday.

The move isn't designed to encourage smoking. But for military members who partake, the smokes could provide a respite from a stressful routine, Bouchard said. . . .

The stogies carry sought-after Cuban labels such as Cohiba, but Bouchard said the labels are counterfeit; the cigars actually are from the Dominican Republic.

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State tells WWII club to change 

The License Commission told the World War II Veterans Association yesterday that it can no longer allow smoking or sell pay-as-you-go memberships at the World War II Club because it must conform with restaurant guidelines.

The Conz Street enterprise has functioned as a private club since it was founded in 1945 by veterans returning from World War II. Since 1983, however, it has operated under a restaurant liquor license and therefore must abide by the requirements of that license, the commission said.

Yesterday's hearing was prompted by questions the License Commission has fielded about the status of the World War II Club

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