Tobacco Documents Online

U'1/?'t3"94' O r: 5'S '$i2'12 309 1493 RADIO TV REPORT Qoo2ino9 ,. 1f 4-t ' RADIO Now oNc 21 A00 2•30 Chicoqo+ 312•5.d1121970 1VRE POR TS Dbfnoik 313a4a.1n77 Los Anyelss: 293466'•6124 Wc.bingtan, D.C.i•301•656.406A. Bsfona 617-536•2232. NATIONAL tE Pbiledel hir.: 215 567.76001 IsM1ARl T COVERAGE p , ' TRANSCRIPT P San fi ronciyca:213-46A•6124 MiseniC 305J50-3359 Fat HILIP MORRIS PRc>GRAM, ALL THINGS CONSI DERED sTAaneM CITv' WNYC-FM I`]E% YORx, DAZE 01%24/94' 5:25 P.M. AUDIENCE Sus;tErCt FAST Pt?OD RESTAU I2APaT' SMC?KZN G BAN BHOA:ID= =EXCE RPT HOST: The fight against smoking, and the concern over the health effects of second handd smoke continue to grow, The latest battle is being waged by 15 states which are trying to ban smoking in fast food chains~. Tomorrow officials from the states will kick off a campaign in Washington, D. C. to get Mc Donald's, Burger King, and other fast food giants to BAN SMOKING to protect childien from second hand smoke. And other anti-smoking crusaders are taking their, battle to the courts and winning some victories. NPFt' s Daniel Zwerdling reports,. DANIEL ZWERDLING~{'REPORTF'h2~} : There arenrt many issues that you can~ get 15 attorney generais to agree on but this campaign against smoking, in fast food chains has really galvanized state officials. Look at the list of sponsors. It includes the usual activists from New York and Massachusetts along with, officials from less liberal states such aa Utah and~ Mi.ssissippi. Tom Udall is attorney general of New Mexico. THOMAS UDALL (ATTORNE'YGENENAL-NEW' 1WfEX'ICO) : Kids work in fast food restaurants. Kid's eat in fast food' restaurants. I believe it's'on!e of the bigi health issues out there right now that i'sni' t being addressed. ZWERDLING: The state officials: decided to address it lastt year after the Environmental Protection Agency issued its landmarkk report concluding that second hand smoke does make people sick,, especially children. Toba~cco industxy' eXecutives disrni:ssed' the evidence as inconclusive but EPA officials insist that sO-called passive 1'N}iilr. Rodio TY'Roports Ondsorora'to 1ossure lh. eocurocy ei mat.riof'suppli.d ,by a, it aonn+at be rspensibErr fot mistokuler omissienIi. Mahrid wppliaa br Radio N Ropoen may bre uaed forAlk end roheema. purpes:,onty: R may not bs r.produeod, sold or pw,blidy demansvared lor s:f,:birod'

01; 26,.94 07:56 '8'212' 309 1494 RADIO TV REPORT - 2 - (dj oo 3/ 0 0 9, smoking causes hundreds of thousands of cases of as!thmai and rewpiratory infections in children every year. And they said~.years of breathing other people's smoke causes cancex, again Tom Udal].. WDALL: Let's j'ust compare it for a minute with drunk driving.. We're talking about thousands of people being killed in those circumstances. When you're talking, about deaths as a result of passive smoke you're talking about 44,0100 people a year, dying as a result of passive smoke. ZWERDLING: So the attorney generals will try to pressure all the fast food chains to ban smoking voluntarily. An executive at Arby's told me that his chain will comply. Ey summer they'll ban smoking in the 2010 some restaurants which the corporation actually owns~. As for the 2',000 other Arby"s, operated under fxanchise, the executive says, the company has no`-legal authority to force them to go along but he, said'Arby's will support legislation on Capitol H.ill to ban simokingin~all restaurants across the: country. The Attorney Generals' campaign is the: latest political assault against smoke lofting out of pipes, cigars and cigarettes. Meanwhile recent court cases are provid'ing powerful legal strategies for going after smokers. Consider the case of Andrea Portneir (?), the way her attorney, Larry Niinsky, tells the story Portneir worked at an international insurance brokerage company in a hi rise building in Los Angeles. LARRY MINSKY (ATTORNEY)l: And in the interior of the office is basically cubicles, where the walls do not go all the way to the ceiling, and' various people worked in these cubicles and a lot of the people smoked. ZWERDLING: And Andrea Portneir started getting sick. She got chronic headaches and nausea. She became asthmatic for the first time and had to take steroids to treat it. Accordingi,to Minsky, Portnier kept asking company executives~ to protect her from the smoke and they took some steps! to do it. For inetance,:,they moved smokers to the far side of the room. Then when that didn't solve anything.they gave her an office with a door. But that didn't solve the situation either because the ventilation system blew smoky air intolher room. MINSKY: Eventually what they did is they, said, look, we can' t have you work here any more. It's~not working so, get out. And if that"s not goi enough for you we'll allow you, to continue to work for us but you choose your own location,, someplace in a building where there's no smoke, and we'll put you up in that kind of a facility.

Ui, yg%94 wl': 53 '$'=1''2 309 1!493 R:aU I 0 TV REPORT - 3 - 0004/00'9' ZWERDLING: Hey, I can think of a.lot of people who would love to work someplace other than in the main office. MINSKY :~ So she' s' supposed to be a team pl'ayer. . She' s supposed to have the team cooperation. SY~~a''s supposedi to be able to go into an office and bring her clients there and say, this is who I work for. This is the kind!of work force that you're gonna have to back you when you need help. And she wasn"t gonna be able to do that, Nobody's out there but herself. ZWERDLING: So Andrea Portniex sued! her company on charges of assault and battery saying they knowingly hurt her physically. The company''s attorneys said that's~crazy. One told the: judge that it '. Portnier can' bring this case you cou.ld also sue someone for passing gas in your elevator and he asked the court to dismiss.it. But three months ago -the Los Pingeles Superior Court ruled that this complaint against smokers is an assault and battery case and it goes to a jury trial in April. And! don't write this off as another crazy decision, which could happen only in California. Last summer the Georgia Court of Appeals ruled th!at' the receptionist at a small town bank could charge the bank vice president with assault and battery for blowing his pipe smoke her way, knowing it made her i11. That case is under appeal. Attorney Minsky, MINSKY: It's~. a recognition that these same concepts~ are gonnaa be abZe.to be applied in a situation where the injury, where the physical assault, wherethephysical touching, is~ in the air. ZWEbzDLING': zsn"t it going a little far, stretching the law to say, it's just like somebody bashing you in the face? MINSKY: Smashing, somebody in the face eventually your wounds will heal whereas in this kind of situation where you have a lifetime injury the concept of a' loaded gun, or the smoking gun I should say, is very much the issue. It is a smoJcing gun.. ZWE'RDhING:. And here's another, controversial lega]l development. Judges in several states have been' resolving child custody battlesbased partly on which, parent smokes and which does not. Consider the recent case in' Jacksonvil'1e., Florida reported by Sharon Caponi of local TV station WJKS. S'HARbN CABONI (REPORTER - WJKS) : Seven year old Travis iss going to live with his father now. Travis has asthma and' was~ raised! by his mother but Karen Kirkpatrick recently married a smoker and moved into her mother-in-law's home and she is a chain smoker.

01: 1116 , 9-3 0i':5'i' $=1= 3'0'9' 1493 RADIO TV REPORT 2005i009 ZWERDLING'.: The child had never lived with his father before. In fact~ Kiirkpatrick~ o~nce~~ had! to, sue the~ m~an to~ get~ support payments, but as Caponi reported, the father asked the judge to g~ive him cu~st~ody~ last November, saying he~ wanted t~oprotect ~ the~ boy from all the smoke,. CAPONI: That's exactly what Judge Bill Parsons~ did. JUDGE BILL PAPtS~©XS~: To smoke cigarettes in the presence of asma3,1 child with.a respiratory ailment really borders on criminal~ condu.ct. CAPONI: : Th~e, Kirkpatrick family . . . . Z~WEFtDLINO',: The To~ba~cco~, Znstitute,., the~ mairi ~ industry lobby,~ which is fighting, those smoking,,laws, condemns recent decisions 1~ ike this as an invasion of privacy and I talked, to a California attorney who~ spec~i~alizes~~ in fr~am~il.y~ law~ who~ says~ she~ hates smoking and'agrees with the institute. TERRY IVEWMAN' (ATTORNEY) : If' I feel that a parent is doing what they feel is right for their children I put my personal beliefs down because I think that we cannot iegislate, we cannot tell people how they need to raise their children. ZWERDLZNG: Terry Newman represents~ a mother involved in a bitter custody cas~ein Califprnia. Oneof_ many issues before the court is the fact that the mother smokes, And while Newman says shewon"t talk about thisspecific~ case she: will say that it's adangerous ide a for the courts,to take a child' away from: parent mair~~l yly becaus~the parent lights up~ unless therp'`s firm proof that the smoking in damaging that individual child''shealth. Newman says in the custody cases she icnows about it' s never so simple. Medical speci.alists~usually disagree whether smoking's to blame. NEWMAN: And we cou].d' talk about disciplisnirg children. Howw disciplinir,gshoul'd take place.Youknow,how children shouldbefed, things like that. I think that we could become too intrusive into homes by uszng, the legal system, so I am able to put my personal beliefs asid;eandinsurew'hen T'm: . representing a client,, that their right to raise their chi].dYen as long as there's no proven harm to that child, chat their right to raise that child iss their right alone. ZWERDLING: Of course cou:rt's around the country are rejecting some lawsuits in which plaintiffs charge.that second hand smoke is hu'rting, them but according' to: a Survey of ongoing cases by the Tobaccc Contro]: Resources Center at Northeastern University, anti- smoking decisions are prevailing. A couple of years ago a woman in