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SMOKING WAR WAGED ON DIFFERENT FRONTS - Town Of Clay Challenges Ban |
| (05/19/2005) |
| The smoking wars continue around the state, from lots of regulations to very few. Logan, a "smoke'em if you got-em" county, has no clean indoor smoking regulations, and has no plans to adopt such controls. Logan, where at least 35% of the residents smoke, is one of five of WVs 55 counties that has not passed such regulations. Only Lincoln County, according to studies, has a higher rate of smokers at 40%. Lincoln has no indoor air smoking regulation, along with Barbour, Mercer, Pocahontas and Mingo. In Calhoun and the Mid-Ohio Valley region, an expansion of indoor smoking regulations, appears to have met some hurdles within the 15-member board of the Mid-Ohio Valley Health Department. After a round of community meetings discussing the banning of all smoking in restaurants, the MOVHD expanded the regulations to include all work sites, while lessening the requirements for bars. Now, the regulations seem to be facing problems with some of the board members, leading health department officials to be skeptical about passage. The issue is supposed to come to a head this summer. In Clay County, there is an interesting development with the Town of Clay voting to be exempt from tighter regulations imposed by the Clay Health Department in the county. Linda Klutzbach, Clay County Health Department Director, said the department's regulations override any municipal ordinances that might be passed. "State statues have given the legal authority to protect the health and safety of state citizen's to the health departments," she said. She said if the the Town of Clay's open smoking ordinance goes to court "They will lose." Klutzbach said it is mis-information that smokers cannot walk up and down the sidewalk and smoke, saying the regulation applies to those standing to smoke within 15 feet of a doorway. They will have to find another place. Clay's regulation is much like others in the state, banning smoking in restaurants and work sites, which means all businesses. She discounted statements that the regulations would ban the selling of ashtrays, matches, cigarettes or anything smoking related in the county of Clay. "Ashtrays, matches, cigarettes are legal items," Klutzbach said. Klutzbach indicated that like all regulations "They are open for interpretation, but I can assure you the health department is not going to be Gestapo police. Smoking regulations will mostly be enforced by acceptance." "If someone would file a complaint about a violation, we would investigate it," she said. The smoking regs exempted bingo halls, but Klutzbach said in Clay County the bingo halls wanted smoking banned during the game.
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