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Foes' poll puts effort to modify law in doubt
Jump to full article: Saint Paul (MN) Pioneer Press, 2006-07-07
Author: TIM NELSON Pioneer Press
Intro: St. Paul residents apparently like the city's new smoking ban, according to a poll released Thursday by the Ramsey Medical Society and the Minnesota Partnership for Action Against Tobacco.
Funded by MPAAT, the poll found 72 percent of 500 registered voters polled last week favored the smoking ban in bars and restaurants, 60 percent of them strongly. The poll used a weighted sample of 400 people and had a margin of error of 5 percentage points.
"It's a pretty overwhelming indication that the residents of St. Paul don't want to change the law," said Roger Johnson, chief executive of the medical society, a group representing doctors in St. Paul and its suburbs. "People clearly want to be protected from the dangers of cigarette smoke, and they don't want exceptions."
The poll is the second indication in a month of what might happen if the city's smoking ban, which took effect this spring, is put to a vote. In an e-mail to the mayor's office last month, Jim Farrell, executive director of the Minnesota Licensed Beverage Association, said a poll by his organization found opponents and supporters of the ban about evenly split.
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