Tobacco.org

Doin’ it with Diddy at the Super Bowl: Beverly Hills Cigar Club Scorches South Beach with Golconda Churchill Introduction 

Super Bowl Weekend - Beverly Hills Cigar Club (BHCC) did it with Diddy, launching its new Golconda Churchill at the Sean "Diddy" Combs' celebrity-filled "I am King" Super Bowl event at the Sean John pop-up boutique on Collins Avenue in South Beach.

"Goldwin Tobacco's Louixs, named for Louix XIV, the luxury-loving ruler of France, along with Golconda, perfectly match Diddy's `I Am King' theme. With these cigars, South Beach was a little hotter tonight."

BHCC sponsored Diddy's and several other Miami events as part of the company's Super Bowl Cigar campaign.

Celebrating at Diddy's event were NFL players Hanley Ramirez (Florida Marlins), Ryan Grant (RB Green Bay Packer), Aaron Maybin (Buffalo Bills), Andre Johnson (Houston Texans), Lamar Woodley (Pittsburgh Steelers), Amobi Okoye (Houston Texans), Arron Mavin (Ravens), Dan Connelly (New England Patriots), Lamarr Woodley (Pittsburgh Steelers), Eric Dickerson (Retired Rams) and Hanley Rame-Riez (Florida Marlins).

Jump to full article »

• JAMES STEWART et al. v. ROLLING STONE LLC et al. (PDF) 

Defendants are the publishers of Rolling Stone magazine. The named plaintiffs in this class action lawsuit are •indie rock• musicians whose band names are included with the names of over 100 other bands in an editorial feature entitled •Indie Rock Universe•

(the Feature) that appeared in the November 15, 2007 issue of Rolling Stone . . . The opposite page, on the magazine‘s left-hand side, contains a full-page advertisement for Camel cigarettes. . . .

In closing, we appreciate that the placement of the Feature within the gatefold layout may have caused plaintiffs some distress, insofar as their bands‘ names appeared in such close proximity to R.J. Reynold‘s expressions of corporate sponsorship for independent music. Doubtless, Dustin Hoffman experienced similar distress upon seeing

the image that was the subject of his lawsuit against Los Angeles magazine. Because plaintiffs have not demonstrated that defendants acted with actual malice, however, constitutional principles of freedom of speech and the press require this lawsuit be dismissed.

Jump to full article »

Cigarette Starts City Heights Apartment Fire 

A man and his dog escaped unharmed from his burning apartment in City Heights early Thursday, but his cat perished in the blaze, which was sparked by a discarded cigarette, a San Diego fire official said.

The fire broke out about 7:30 a.m. on the second floor of a two-story apartment building at 4250 Swift Ave., near El Cajon Boulevard, said Maurice Luque of the San Diego Fire-Rescue Department.

Jump to full article »

Tobacco Youth Brigade holds picket 

Students involved in the Tennyson Health Center's Tobacco Youth Brigade (TYB) Program and their supporters held an informational picket in front of Rotten Robbie's gas station store at W Tennyson Road and Ruus Road, Hayward, at 3.30 p.m. on January 28. The Tennyson Health Center is a school-based health center run by Tiburcio Vasquez Health Center Inc.

TYB has worked assiduously to reduce the level of tobacco advertising targeted towards youth and has asked Rotten Robbie's to join the "Health Is Power" campaign. The owners have ignored efforts to contact them 3 times in the past 3 months, including a letter sent via certified mail to corporate office and numerous phone calls.

More than 70 percent of Rotten Robbie's window space is covered with advertisements; this is more than double the legal limit. There is tobacco advertising at four of the station's six gas pumps. The business has tobacco advertisements positioned below three feet high, right at child's-eye level. Tobacco advertising faces the Eden Youth Center whose visitors will see their advertisements at least once a day.

Jump to full article »

Details of draft Menlo Park smoking ordinance released 

A draft smoking ordinance under consideration in Menlo Park would ban smoking in common areas of apartment and condominium complexes and deem secondhand smoke a public nuisance, according to a brief outline of the document released Tuesday.

City Attorney Bill McClure gave council members at Tuesday night's council meeting an oral description of the ordinance he is still crafting to aid discussion on public outreach for proposed revisions to Menlo Park's current law, last updated in 1993.

In addition to the apartment and condominium restrictions, the draft ordinance would also prohibit smokers from lighting up in public service areas, such as ATM lines, McClure said.

Jump to full article »

• Some renters want Santa Monica to further restrict smoking  

But after the couple made several $100 trips to the emergency room because their infant daughter was gasping for air, they pleaded with the neighbor to stop smoking outdoors, to no avail. Now, contending that secondhand smoke poses a health hazard, they have joined other activists who are pushing the city to snuff out smoking on private balconies and patios in multifamily dwellings.

It's an effort that puts Santa Monica in sync with a growing number of other California cities and counties that have hit smokers where they live. Yet, in the liberal-leaning beach community, the debate takes on added freight because of the political clout of Santa Monica's tenants rights advocates, who contend that landlords would welcome an excuse to evict longtime tenants in rent-controlled units.

The fight might come down to whether such a sweeping smoking ban bumps up against the civil rights of renters. . . .

But a prohibition on smoking on private patios and balconies marks a line that local politicians seem reluctant to cross for fear of offending the influential Santa Monicans for Renters' Rights group in an election year.

Even without an election, said Councilman Kevin McKeown, the issue is especially potent in Santa Monica, where about 70% of residents are renters.

"Do we even have the legal right to disallow smoking within someone's home?" McKeown said. "Can we legislate the breeze?"

Santa Monicans for Renters' Rights has been a political force for 30 years.

Jump to full article »

Business impact worries hold up smoking ban expansion 

Legislation that would expand the no-smoking areas in San Francisco was held up Monday by members of the Board of Supervisors Land Use and Economic Development Committee. During their meeting, committee members echoed concerns voiced recently by business advocates, as reported by the Examiner Monday, that the legislation would adversely impact businesses.

Jump to full article »

S.F. considers tightening smoking restrictions 

A proposal to greatly expand San Francisco's smoking ban won high praise Monday from health professionals concerned about the dangers of secondhand smoke, but got a cool response from local bar and nightclub owners who fear the restrictions would drive away customers.

The legislation would prohibit people from lighting up in front of shops, restaurants and office buildings or puffing away at a sidewalk cafe or in designated smoking patios. Movie theater lines, sporting events, farmers' markets and common areas of apartment complexes would be off limits, too.

Jump to full article »

• Smoking ban plan has mixed support 

Residents in 70 apartment buildings throughout unincorporated Santa Clara County will not be allowed to light up in their homes under Supervisor Ken Yeager's proposal this week to ban cigarette smoking in apartment complexes.

But the idea, while cheered by clean air advocates and all but one of his fellow supervisors, is being met with dismay by apartment owners and managers, not to mention many smokers whose last refuge to smoke may now become off-limits.

Patty Delong, who puffs a half-pack a day, assumes her fellow smokers won't like the proposal. "They're going to think the government is in their business, which it is," she said.

She, however, supports the idea. "I think that's great. Maybe now I'll be forced to quit," said Delong, 55, who has been smoking since she was 16. She lives in an apartment in San Jose's Burbank area that would fall under a smoking ban.

Jump to full article »

City Council votes park smoking ban into law (updated) 

Nevada City council members snuffed out the option of lighting up at last night's meeting, voting 4-1 on an ordinance to ban smoking in parks and outdoor public places.

Those public places include trails and other city-owned property, such as the old Nevada City airport, and exclude sidewalks and streets. Fines are not to exceed $100 for a first violation, $200 for a second violation in the same year, and $500 for additional violations in the same year.

Councilwoman Barbara Coffman was the lone dissenting vote on the issue, which has been winding its way through council channels for several years.

Coffman said she opposed the ordinance “because there is no designated area where people can go to smoke, rather than going into a neighborhood.”

Jump to full article »

UCSF study finds African-Americans bear disproportionate burden of smoking costs in California 

African Americans comprise six percent of the California adult population, yet they account for over eight percent of the state's smoking-attributable health care expenditures and 13 percent of smoking-attributable mortality costs, according to a new analysis by UCSF researchers.

In order to provide an objective picture of the disproportionate economic burden of tobacco use for African American Californians, the UCSF team assessed data from 2002, including health care costs related to smoking and productivity losses from smoking-caused mortality. Study findings are published in the January 2010 issue of the "American Journal of Public Health."

"California has one of the most comprehensive tobacco control programs in the world, and smoking prevalence in the state has been declining steadily as a result. However, not all Californians have benefited equally from these efforts," said lead author Wendy Max, PhD, professor-in-residence of health economics and co-director of the UCSF Institute for Health & Aging, School of Nursing. "Hopefully these data can be used to strengthen tobacco control programs and smoking cessation efforts throughout African American communities."

Jump to full article »

CHP and firefighters warn cigarette litterbugs 

The California Highway Patrol, environmental, and fire prevention advocates have launched a newly upgraded Cigarette Litter Hotline, "Hold on to your Butt." This is a public education campaign focused on holding accountable smokers who toss their cigarette butts out of vehicles while navigating San Diego County’s highways.

This program will empower county residents to report smokers who illegally discard their cigarettes on the roadways. Utilizing a toll-free hotline, 1-877-211-2888 (BUTT), citizens will be able to record the date, time, and place of the littering, along with the license plate number of observed cigarette litterbugs. . . .

Butts discarded on sidewalks and streets eventually end up in storm drains, which flow into the ocean. When the butts get wet from contact with a body of water, toxins gathered by the filter are released.

This threatens the quality of the water and many forms of aquatic life.

Jump to full article »

Santa Clara County wants to ban smoking in apartment buildings  

Santa Clara County took aim Tuesday at smokers and drinkers, with proposals to ban smoking in apartment buildings and toughen penalties for those who provide alcohol to minors.

The smoking proposal was unveiled by Supervisor Ken Yeager, who was sworn in as the board's new president. It echoes a controversial law passed last year by Belmont, which garnered national headlines. . . .

But his proposed ban on smoking in apartment buildings takes its inspiration from further north. Belmont last year became California's first city to install such a ban; Richmond has followed suit, and Menlo Park council members are still weighing the issue. Yeager's proposal differs in that it would not target condominiums or townhomes.

Yeager also wants the county to ban smoking in parks, as San Jose has done, and to prohibit pharmacies from selling cigarettes.

Jump to full article »

Calif. county may outlaw apartment smoking  

An official in California wants his county to ban smoking in all apartment buildings and parks and to bar drugstores from selling cigarettes.

Ken Yeager, the newly elected president of the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors, made his proposals Tuesday in his State of the County address, the San Jose Mercury News reported.

At least two California towns have banned smoking in apartments, and a third is considering it. San Jose, the Santa Clara County seat and biggest city, has already made smoking in parks illegal.

Under Yeager's proposal, condominium buildings and townhouses with contiguous walls, would not be included in the ban.

Jump to full article »

City Council votes park smoking ban into law 

Nevada City council members snuffed out the option of lighting up at last night's meeting, voting 4-1 on an ordinance to ban smoking in parks and outdoor public places.

Councilwoman Barbara Coffman was the lone dissenting vote on the issue, which has been winding its way through council channels for several years.

Coffman said she opposed the ordinance “because there is no designated area where people can go to smoke, rather than going into a neighborhood.”

The issue of smokers' rights came up in previous discussions.

“As much as I value smokers' rights, I put more value on the rights of every citizen to breathe clean air,” said Mayor Reinette Senum.

Jump to full article »