Letters to the Web Editor

I support for the proposed 100 percent no-smoking ordinance currently being researched by the City of Tyler. As a recent college graduate and former restaurant employee of approximately four years, I have very strong feelings toward an ordinance such as this.

In the restaurant business, employees are most often overlooked when looking at the concerns of restaurants and their patrons when it comes to the right for customers to smoke while dining.

I am not fluent with the recent studies and statistics about secondhand smoke exposure to restaurant employees, but can give a first-hand account of what I experienced.

Even in restaurants where there is "adequate" separation between the smoking and non-smoking areas, anyone who has been in a restaurant knows that everyone who walks in the door is subject to the harms of the smoke.

The employees not only have to be in the building for sometimes up to 12 hours at a time, but often have to be in very close contact with the smokers. I, on many occasions, had to falsely tell my employers that I suffer from asthma and was completely unable to even be around the smoke.

If a claim such as this was not made, I would have to spend 6 to 10 hours breathing the smoke with very little chance for a breath of "fresh air." Not only did I go home every day smelling disgusting, but over time, I developed a chronic cough as though I were smoking a pack of cigarettes myself. As someone who grew up in a smoke-free home, this was disgusting to me and eventually did become the reason that I got out of the restaurant business.

The flexible hours and money that most college kids depend on was not worth my health. I most certainly support this ban, as do many of my closest friends and family. I lived in Dallas for a number of years after they issued the smoking ban in restaurants. The feeling of being able to not only eat in a fresher environment but simply enter the building without smelling like an ash tray is amazing. If smokers don't like it, they should just stay home and cook, or take their food to go.

Stephanie Davis
Tyler

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