County May Become Smoke Free Through LMAS Initiative
By Stephen Underwood

The Eastern Upper Peninsula may be on its way to becoming smoke-free. Administrators at the Luce-Mackinac-Alger-Schoolcraft (LMAS) District Health Department proposed a smoke-free ordinance for workplaces and public buildings to the agency’s board of directors in their Monday, May 2 meeting. The board then passed a resolution supporting this “idea” of a smoke-free ordinance, said board chairman Joe Durm.

To become a local ordinance, however, approval will have to come from each board of commissioners in Mackinac, Luce, Alger, and Schoolcraft counties. Mr. Durm said the Mackinac County Board of Commissioners would likely hold a public hearing on the matter some time in June and then vote on it in a subsequent meeting. LMAS medical examiner Dr. James Therrian predicted it would be in August or September when the four counties vote on it.

Chippewa County adopted a smoke-free environment last fall, but later lifted a restriction for hotels and motels that would have required them to offer at least 80 percent of their rooms smoke-free. Similarly, the LMAS draft does not included those businesses, although they could be added by the counties later. Exempt from the public smoking ban would be bars, restaurants, and casinos.

The effort in Mackinac County began with an informal February 24 meeting that included Mr. Durm, St. Ignace Mayor Bruce Dodson, and LMAS Health Educator Miki Della-Moretta. Similar meetings took place with leaders from the other counties to get a sense of whether they thought a regulation would be well received.

Mrs. Della-Moretta said her department plans to distribute literature and voter surveys to get a feel for the public sentiment on the issue. Dr. Therrian, “has been wanting to do this since the ’70s,” she said.

“They want to get all of the counties to vote together,” said Mr. Durm. “They want to wait to get everyone lined up. Three or four counties around the state have already gone with the ban. The movement is here.”

In addition to Chippewa County in the E.U.P., smoke-free counties in Michigan include Wayne (not including City of Detroit), Ingham, Genesee, and Washtenaw. In addition, cities like Marquette have adopted smoke-free ordinances on their own. Altogether, 228 municipalities in Michigan, accounting for 24 percent of the population have enacted regulations as of May 12, 2005, said Jim Bergman, director of the Smoke-Free Environments Law Project (SFELP), a unit of the Center for Social Gerontology in Ann Arbor.

Four northern Michigan counties were recently added to the list. The board for the Northwest Michigan Community Health Agency adopted a similar regulation December 7, 2004. As would be the case with LMAS, the regulation had to be approved by the commissions of Otsego, Emmet, Antrim, and Charlevoix counties before it would take effect.

“Antrim County passed it April 14 and they were the last one,” said Mr. Bergman. “The regulation will go into effect July 13. They are the first multi-county health district to approve it and LMAS could be the second.”

Chippewa approved its regulation July 12, 2004, and it went into effect in October. In November, however, it deleted part of the ordinance that covered motels and hotels and added “manufacturers” to its list of exemptions after concerns were expressed at public meetings by motel owners regarding autonomy over their businesses, and by a Sault Ste. Marie EDC member over the ability to attract new manufacturers to the area with such an ordinance.

Many of the buildings that would fall under the regulation in Mackinac County, such as municipal buildings, retail businesses, and community offices, he said, already are smoke-free. Industries, a major target in other counties, are almost nonexistent here.

The regulation is aimed primarily at victims of second-hand smoke in public environments. SFELP reports that in surveys conducted by the American Cancer Society for the Northwest Michigan Community Health Agency and Chippewa County, before the regulations were approved, more than 80 percent of voters responded positively to questions regarding smoke-free environments.

In the Northwest survey, 82 percent of registered voters surveyed agreed a smoking restriction is needed so children and non-smokers do not have to be exposed to the harmful effects of secondhand smoke, 87 percent agreed that indoor areas of work sites and public places should be smoke-free, and 92 percent understand that secondhand smoke can harm people who don't smoke.

In the Chippewa survey, 90 percent of the registered voters agreed that secondhand smoke is harmful to health, 86 percent agreed that indoor areas of worksites and public places should be smoke-free, 75 percent agreed that local government should support public health, including restricting smoking which would eliminate secondhand smoke exposure, and, 85 percent agreed that a county regulation is needed so children and nonsmokers do not have to be exposed to the harmful effects of secondhand smoke in worksites and public places.

Mrs. Della-Moretta said she expects to get similar results in the LMAS area and they will be a positive factor in enacting a smoke-free regulation.