Not all business owners agree on smoking

If you just read the letters to the editor, you'd think that all business owners want to keep the right to allow smoking in their businesses. However, most business owners are quiet on this subject.

If you talk to very many of them, you'll find that most are in favor of a smoke-free ordinance, even if they allow smoking now. Most of them simply favor a level playing field that only an ordinance can create.

They don't want to ban smoking in their establishment just to send their smoking patrons down the street to the next place that allows smoking. However, if all businesses promote quit smoking, this wouldn't happen.

Sure, the hundreds of other cities that have already gone smoke-free find that smokers grumble. They might even stay home for a couple of weeks. But city after city has proven that smoke-free laws actually improve business over time. What are we waiting for?

I will be voting for this ordinance, and hope you will also.

Source: Amarillo