By John Sweeney
Published: April 11, 2011
FLORENCE, SC —
With a 5-2 vote for a proposed smoking ordinance, members of Florence City Council brought two months of public hearings, debates and some last-minute amendment drama to an end.
Sort of.
“It’s sort of a relief,” Councilwoman Octavia Williams-Blake said after council’s regular meeting Monday night. “I do realize that this is the first round, this is first reading, and a lot can happen between now and next month when we’re scheduled to have second reading.”
Regardless, Williams-Blake said she will celebrate the ordinance getting this far. When the measure was introduced by her in February with five members of council sponsoring it, it seemed almost a forgone conclusion it would be adopted.
Scheduled first reading of the ordinance was delayed from March to April when Councilman Ed Robinson announced he would be out of town on city business and unable to attend the March meeting.
The next month was full of ups and downs, including Councilmen Buddy Brand and Glynn F. Willis proposing two amendments to the ordinance following an impassioned public hearing March 3.
That caused supporters like Williams-Blake to question whether support of the measure was waning, but both Brand and Willis voted along with Williams-Blake, Mayor Stephen J. Wukela and Councilwoman Teresa Myers Ervin at Monday’s meeting.
“I was not confident,” Williams-Blake said when asked how she felt heading into the meeting after a tumultuous March. “We have worked very hard as a council to try and balance the needs of both smokers and non-smokers, and everybody’s heart was in the right place for doing the right thing.”
The ordinance council passed Monday was 600 words longer than what Williams-Blake introduced in February and included language resulting from discussions between council and Jim Peterson, city attorney.
Changes involved warehouse and work shop areas away from the general public where smoking would be allowed, a provision that allows employees a smoking area away from the general public and not where other employees are required to go and language that protects merchants from having their business licenses revoked for failing to comply with the ordinance.
Enforcement of the ordinance still rests with the city administrator and appointed designees and fines of no less than $10 and no more than $25 will be assessed.
While opinions from past arguments were rehashed by both members of council and several speakers in public comment, Robinson introduced some new points to consider about the issue.
Robinson contends adopting the ordinance would be removing a right of the citizens and, therefore, dishonoring those who fought for equal rights, citing specifically minorities who did so during the civil rights movement.
“So many people have died, sacrificed, gone through so much turmoil to get the rights that we do have,” Robinson said. “Now, you’re asking me to give it up? Under no circumstances.”
Councilman Steve Powers, the other dissenting vote, issued a warning to those who supported the ordinance that they may regret pushing this issue should other groups ask for ordinances pertaining to other issues.
“The ones of you here today asking for all of us to vote on this… you’re going to be the same ones coming back later on saying, ‘Don’t do that,’” Power said. “Because there’s going to be other rights, what’s going to be next? Are we going to start looking at the caloric content in food in restaurants?”
Monday’s vote did not officially mean the city has adopted the ordinance. The ordinance will take effect if the measure passes second reading and adoption, which will be scheduled at council’s next regularly scheduled meeting in May.