Florence city council adopts smoking ordinance

By John Sweeney
Published: May 09, 2011
FLORENCE, S.C. —
The Florence City Council wasn’t blowing smoke and now neither will you in most indoor public gathering areas.

Council approved final reading and adoption of a long debated ordinance today that will ban smoking in indoor areas of city businesses where the public gathers.

The ordinance passed with a 5-2 vote at today’s 1:00p.m. council meeting at the Florence City County Complex.

The ordinance will go into effect this November.

Introduced in February of this year, the smoking ordinance has been the center of controversy for the last four months. Proponents of the measure said prohibiting smoking indoors would be in the best interest of public health, citing risks attributed to second hand smoke especially to children and the elderly.

Opponents to the ordinance have said it takes away the rights of business owners to decide what goes on in their place of work.

In February, Councilwoman Octavia Williams-Blake introduced the ordinance co-sponsored by four fellow council members—Mayor Stephen Wukela, Councilwoman Teresa Myers Ervin and councilmen Buddy Brand and Glynn Willis—in anticipation for first reading to occur in March and final reading and adoption set for April.

The ordinance was pushed back one month following a passionate public hearing and a Councilman Ed Robinson announcement that he would be out of town on city business and unable to attend first reading.

The future of the ordinance was put further in doubt when councilmen Brand and Willis introduced amendments to the ordinance that would allow employees of some businesses to smoke in well ventilated areas as well as loading docks with access to the outdoors.

Language was eventually added to the ordinance to that end despite protest from Williams-Blake that it lessened an already muted ordinance compared to others throughout the state.

Brand and Willis found themselves at the center of another smoking ordinance controversy when they were “admonished” by the Florence County Republican Party for their support of the measure.

Both said they would continue to support the ordinance so long as it held the interest of the public health.

Brand said he found the admonishment from the Florence County GOP “ridiculous.”

Debate over the ordinance continued in the week leading up to today’s final reading and adoption. Councilman Steve Powers, a vocal opponent to the ordinance, wrote a letter-to-the-editor that appeared in the Morning News May 4.

“This city council is at a crossroads,” Powers wrote. “On May 9 it will either rob its citizens of more of their personal rights or it will agree to some form of compromise that protects individual rights and (ensures) the fair treatment of all businesses.”

Mayor Wukela wrote an op-ed that ran in the paper May 8, saying the ordinance should pass for the good of public health.

“Liberty does not protect an individual’s conduct when it subjects their society to danger,” Wukela said. “So long as humans live in civil society, individuals must accept some responsibility for the health and welfare of their community.”

Enforcement of the ordinance will rest with the city administrator and appointed designees. Fines of no less than $10 and no more than $25 will be assessed.

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