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BAN: Smoking in restaurants and businesses ends Thursday.
By Brandi Hart, McKinney Courier-Gazette
Synchronize your watches, folks. Today is the last day that people will be able to smoke a cigarette in restaurants in McKinney as the city-wide smoking ban for restaurants and businesses goes into effect Thursday.
Not that this is new news to anyone. The McKinney City Council approved a smoking ordinance on Sept. 4, 2007 that gave business and restaurant owners one calendar year to phase out smoking sections. All businesses and restaurants that are not classified as a private club, such as a country club, must adhere to the smoking ordinance beginning on Thursday or the business owners will receive a fine up to $500.
Smoking is prohibited in all enclosed places of employment within the city, retail stores, offices, restaurants, public transit stations and vehicles, museums, theaters, public parks, hospitals, and common use areas in apartment and other buildings.
People can smoke in tobacco stores, their homes, personal automobiles, stores and designated smoking rooms of country clubs that are not classified as a fraternal organization. Smoking is also allowed in outdoor places of employment, on public sidewalks at least 25 feet from doors and windows, and in parking lots within public parks.
Members of the American Legion in McKinney on Monday did not understand why they were not classified as a private club in the ordinance.
Carolyn Hamilton of McKinney, a legion member, is a nonsmoker but respects the rights of others to smoke -- especially the veterans coming home from fighting in Iraq who will be prohibited from lighting up in the American Legion headquarters.
"You're good enough to fight for your country but when you get back here you can't drink if you're under 21 and can't smoke," Hamilton said. "The American Legion is a fraternal organization and we're not open to the public. We require a membership like country clubs do but the city told us we are a fraternal organization and can't smoke here," Hamilton said.
Jim Parmer of Weston is also a non-smoker and legion member who thought the smoking ordinance was not fair.
"We're going to let them smoke until they burn it down. It sucks," said Jim Parmer of Weston, a non-smoker and an American Legion member.
The city granted existing businesses with a valid certificate of occupancy dated prior to Jan. 1, 2008, a full year from the Sept. 4, 2007 ordinance adoption date to comply with the smoking ordinance, said the city's Community Development Director Sam Chavez.
"Anyone who chooses to smoke can still do so on their personal property, among other select places," Chavez said.
No more than 10 percent of hotel and motel rooms can be designated smoking rooms. All smoking rooms must be on the same floor, adjacent to the other smoking rooms and require separate ventilation systems.
Mayor Bill Whitfield said from his home on Monday that he voted in favor of the ordinance last year because of health reasons second hand smoke imposes on people in restaurants.
"From a health standpoint my father was a good example of someone who kept smoking and never stopped, even after the doctors told him to. I quit smoking cold turkey in 1968, the year my dad died from smoking," he said.
Chavez said the city has had great compliance with the first phase of the ordinance, and many establishments voluntarily have been smoke-free for quite a while.
Contact Brandi Hart at hartb@acnpapers.com.
ONLINE: www.mckinneyinfo.com.
