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VIDEO: Virginia restaurants begin preparations for smoke-free establishments 

With just about 50 days to go before the statewide smoking ban kicks in, many restaurants say they are already smoke-free. Others say they are still deciding whether to spend the extra money to cater to smokers.

Customers can smell the food cooking but they will not smell any cigarette smoke at the Do-Nut Dinette. It's already smoke free.

Greg Pastore made it that way when he bought the place 4 years ago. He said that's what customers wanted.

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EDITORIAL: Dan River Region hails JTI Leaf  

JTI Leaf Services' decision to process American-grown tobacco in Danville doesn't just mean 39 new full-time jobs and 150 seasonal jobs.

It's about more opportunities for the Dan River Region's tobacco farmers -- and a potential shot in the arm for the local agricultural economy.

"They're here. They never left," Commissioner Todd Haymore of the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services said of local tobacco farmers last week. "They have the land and the infrastructure. They have the knowledge and the know-how." . . .

we think it's a smart investment in jobs that can be filled quickly by a company that recognizes the quality product grown here.

The Dan River Region needs every good job it can get, and growth in the tobacco sector through JTI Leaf Services' commitment to our community is great news.

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Kaine highlights approaching ban on restaurant smoking 

"It's not a very good condiment."

So, Perly's Restaurant & Deli was a logical place for Gov. Timothy M. Kaine to kick off a countdown to Virginia's upcoming ban on smoking in restaurants, which takes effect Dec. 1.

Kaine, accompanied by the state health commissioner, Dr. Karen Remley, crisscrossed the commonwealth yesterday, dropping by eateries to extol the virtues of smoke-free dining.

Twenty-six other states and the District of Columbia already ban smoking in restaurants. In 2006, Kaine issued an executive order prohibiting smoking in state offices.

Currently, 70 percent of Virginia's restaurants are smoke-free.

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Kaine Marks 50 Days to Smoking Ban 

just 50-days, smokers will find it a little more difficult to do so in their favorite eating spots. The new law goes into effect December 1st, requiring restaurants to have separate, ventilated facilities for smokers, if they allow smoking at all.

Governor Tim Kaine (web) was in Roanoke Thursday afternoon kicking off the countdown.

We talked to restaurant owners about the new changes, and some folks are making big changes, but others are doing nothing at all.

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VIDEO: Smoking Ban May Force Restaurant to Close 

In just 50 days, restaurants in Virginia go smoke-free. Governor Tim Kaine (web) kicked-off the countdown at the Roanoke restaurant "Table 50."

It's been smoke-free since opening three years ago. The governor says going smoke-free will save businesses money in fire and health insurance.

Kaine also says it will also save the lives of countless restaurant workers for years to come. The law goes into effect December first.

A restaurant is Madison Heights may be forced to shut down after the smoking ban takes effect.

Owners of La Carreta have two restaurants just a quarter mile apart. One is all smoking and the other is completely non-smoking.

Because they're so close together, owners believe they deserve an exemption to the smoking ban because they built the new restaurant specifically for non-smokers.

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• Gov. Kaine Kicks Off 'Countdown To The Restaurant Smoking Ban'  

With just about 50 days to go before the Commonwealth’s landmark smoking ban goes into effect, Governor Timothy M. Kaine is joining dining patrons and community leaders across Virginia today to highlight restaurants that have already gone smoke-free. The new law—called “monumental” in one of the nation’s biggest tobacco-producing states—takes effect December 1 and will prohibit smoking in nearly all restaurants across the Commonwealth. The Governor is visiting successful restaurants in Norfolk, Richmond, Roanoke and Fairfax County that have voluntarily gone smoke-free.

“This historic public health measure will only enhance the high quality of life Virginians have come to enjoy by protecting restaurant patrons and employees from the serious health risks of secondhand smoke,” said Governor Kaine. “With a growing number of Virginia restaurants that have already found they can be both smoke-free and successful, I encourage other restaurants to go smoke-free before December 1 to immediately protect restaurant-goers and workers alike.”

By enacting a ban on smoking in the Commonwealth’s bars and restaurants, Virginia joins the 27 states and the District of Columbia which have already passed similar legislation. Virginia’s law permits narrow exceptions for private clubs and restaurants with designated smoking rooms that are structurally separate and independently vented from non-smoking dining rooms.

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• Gov. Kaine in Norfolk today for countdown to smoking ban  

Gov. Timothy M. Kaine will be in Norfolk today to help kick off the countdown to the state's restaurant smoking ban.

Kaine will speak at 8:30 a.m. at Panera Bread, 739 W. 21st St., a news release from his office says.

The state's smoking ban takes effect Dec. 1.

Kaine also plans to events to kick of the smoking ban in Richmond, Roanoke and Burke, the release says.

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LETTER: McDonnell backs 'Big Tobacco'; vote Deeds 

This letter is addressed to the undecided voters who supported the ban on smoking in Virginia restaurants.

After four years of struggling against legislators who defied the public will, public health prevailed over the nicotine lobby.

As a state senator, R. Creigh Deeds voted for the smoking ban.

Voters should understand that Bob McDonnell opposed this legislation despite the overwhelming support of Virginians.

No surprise, since he consistently protected Big Tobacco throughout his legislative career.

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Ex-Botetourt inmate claims abuse in suit  

A former inmate at the Botetourt Correctional Center claims in a newly filed federal lawsuit that he was tormented by a guard with an alcohol problem and an inventive streak of sadism.

But the guard, now retired, denies it -- and says the prisoner was the one with the drinking problem.

In a lawsuit filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Roanoke, Thomas W. Jackson said that during a year at Camp 25, as the correctional center is sometimes called, Officer Michael Fletcher carried out a program of harassment and torture. It included such things as putting a habanero pepper on Jackson's cut lip, mixing manure into his chewing tobacco, beatings and electric shocks to Jackson's genitals, the complaint claimed. . . .

Fletcher, now retired and living in Scott County, said Tuesday that while he had not yet seen the lawsuit, Jackson's story was wrong.

He recalled two things about the former prisoner: his difficulties with alcohol and love for chewing tobacco.

"He was willing to pick up chewing tobacco that visitors left on the ground and put it in his mouth," Fletcher said.

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LETTER: Smoking ban 

Tobacco taxes bring in a large sum of money to help maintain our state. Our tobacco companies employ people who need their jobs to survive, and the list goes on and on.

I'm sure Oliver is a nonsmoker, which he has a right to be, but what about the smoker who does not have the right to smoke in certain places? I'm aware smoking causes health problems and deaths, but so do cars, trains, planes, etc., and they are not banned.

We own a small business, a bar and grill, which allows smoking. About 75 percent of our customers smoke. As of Dec. 1 of this year, the smoking ban will go into effect, which will destroy our business and probably force us to close our doors after 23 years.

The people of Virginia had no say in the ban on smoking; politics did. Why wasn't there a vote on this issue? . . .

We as a business pay taxes to our city. If we close, the city loses money, people are out of work, and another small business is gone for good. Oliver may not smoke, but he needs to realize what tobacco means in Virginia.

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Smoking ban in effect at U.Va. Medical Center 

As of yesterday, patients, employees and visitors no longer are allowed to smoke on the property of the University of Virginia Medical Center.

As part of the hospital's effort to transition to a smoke-free environment, people no longer may smoke in front of the hospital's entrance, outside the primary-care center, at the medical center's outpatient clinics, in the parking garages and at the Elson Student Health Center.

Instead, smokers will have to walk to Jefferson Park Avenue.

"We want to protect staff, patients and visitors from secondhand smoke, which causes disease and premature death in children and adults who do not smoke," Dr. Jonathon Truwit, the hospital's chief medical officer, said in a news release.

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NC man sentenced for cigarette tax scheme 

A North Carolina man has been sentenced to a year in prison and barred from the tobacco industry for 10 years for evading federal excise taxes on cigarettes produced by his company.

U.S. Attorney Julia C. Dudley says 56-year-old Terence P. McLaughlin of Winterville, N.C., also must pay more than $950,000 in unpaid excise taxes.

McLaughlin was sentenced Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Abingdon.

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Philip Morris program seeks young farmers 

Adrip-irrigation line coursing through a field of tobacco on Steve Hudson's Halifax County farm represents an investment in efficiency.

It also represents a link to cigarette maker Philip Morris USA, which is reaching out to young farmers such as Hudson, 31, to try to keep them in the tobacco-growing business.

The Henrico County-based cigarette company provided Hudson with a $5,000 grant to cover part of the costs for the drip-irrigation system, designed to water the crop more efficiently than an older, overhead irrigation system.

"It is basically a scholarship for an innovative idea that would help at some stage of tobacco production to eliminate some of the costs," Hudson said. He expects the drip-irrigation system on 30 acres of his tobacco to reduce labor costs and improve the speed at which the tobacco matures.

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• Amid industry uncertainties some tobacco farms grow  

RICHMOND -- Farming, David Ferrell says, "is all I ever wanted to do."

At age 20, the recent Virginia Tech grad sees a good future in farming, even for tobacco, a crop that has sustained his family's farm in Charlotte County for several generations.

Despite the many uncertainties in tobacco, including declining U.S. smoking rates, rising tobacco taxes and regulation of the industry by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Ferrell and his brother, Kevin, 24, are investing in tobacco production. They are following in the footsteps of their father, Timmy, 50, who is still active in the operation.

"When I finished school and made my decision about coming back to the farm, I thought about whether there was a future in tobacco, and I think there is," David Ferrell said. "Tobacco will always be grown. How much I don't know, but I do feel it has a future."

He describes the farm as "a true agribusiness" now. Unlike the smaller tobacco farms of 10 or 20 acres limited by federal quotas attached to the land, theirs is an unregulated operation increasingly using mechanization, and producing 150 acres of leaf for tobacco companies on a contract basis.

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Sting cracks cigarette smuggling ring 

A sting operation snuffed out a cigarette smuggling operation and led to the arrests of 21 people who cheated the state out of millions in tax dollars, authorities said Friday.

An informant tipped Westchester County cops that 11 men from New York City and others from as far away as Virginia were looking for a steady supply of untaxed smokes, Westchester County District Attorney Janet DiFiore said.

After stockpiling cigarettes from a legitimate manufacturer, agents opened a warehouse in Yonkers. Deputy state tax Commissioner William Comiskey said the operation took in more than $800,000 a week.

Cops found thousands of packs of untaxed Newport and Marlboro smokes and common household irons, used to attach counterfeit tax stamps, in a series of raids, prosecutors said.

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