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Jump to full article: The Washington Post, 2004-06-19
Author: Page A21
Intro: Radley Balko is dead wrong when he suggests that Smokefree DC is a non-local effort ["Puffing for Property Rights," Close to Home, June 14]. Smokefree DC was started by myself and another District resident, Michael Tacelosky. . . . Meanwhile, the Restaurant Association of Metropolitan Washington, which takes national tobacco industry money and is fighting to block District residents from voting on the smoke-free workplace measure, lists just 12 percent of District restaurants as members. And the Cato Institute, for which Balko works, takes national tobacco industry money. Who's local now? -- Angela Bradbery
Secondhand smoke kills. Nevertheless, Radley Balko asserts that proponents of a ban on smoking in the District should let bar and restaurant owners make their own decisions about whether to have smoke-free air. He argues that owners' property rights trump workers' and patrons' human rights to breathe safe air.
Perhaps they did in the 19th century, but this is the 21st.
-- James Repace
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