Tobacco Documents Online

~ V.,( Mesa Non-Smoker Fights for Smokers' Rights - and Wins t lio At first glance, you might think Kat Gallant wouldn't "-') have the time or the urge to defend adults' right to smoke. She's a mother of seven who runs who owns a men's hair salon and keeps horses, including a quarterhorse named "Peaceful Fireball." She's also a non-smoker. But Ms. Gallant happens to live in Mesa, Arizona, and last March, voters in that city passed an initiative that imposed some of the nation's most radical anti-smoking rules. Smoking was bannedd from many public places indoors, including most restaurants and bars - and in a lot of the great outdoors, too. You couldn't light up near the entrance of a building, while you waited in line outside a movie theater, in an amphitheater or while you watched a parade. The smoking ban was not only unjust; it began destroying some Mesa businesses. According to a study commissioned by ~ G,fite- the city, restaurants reported that b~s-wers down 25 to 3 5 percent, billiard halls lost 10 to 20 of theirs, and hotel bar traffic dropped 40 to 50 percen . Of the 24 businesses that participated in the survey, 1 have laid off employees since the ban took effect. 70 ~y Alge,l ,~„ ~pl~j~ % Th m;.an 4pec a or reported in Januarythat bingo receipts at the Loyal Order of Moose dropped 60 percent after smoking was banned. The Moose use bingo money to buy Christmas presents for underprivileged children.

Discussion Draft/February 27, 1997 page 2 Then Kat Gallant stepped in. "Individual rights are being ripped from the American people," she says. -I firmly believe in the rights of everyone to make choices for themselves." She ran for mayor, and finished a strong third in a field of five candidates. Then she wrote an initiative to repeal the smoking ban -'I and set out to collect the 4,092 voter signatures she needed to get it on the ballot in a special election. "It was the businesses that were suffering most," she says, "because smokers were going to neighboring communities." Representatives of the tobacco industry reportedly offered to help her with the petition drive, but she declined. "This is supposed to be a citizens' movement, with freedom first," she says. She hit the road in her pickup truck and, with help from City Council member Joan Payne and other supporters, collected 7,367 signatures. The initiative is scheduled to come up for a vote in March of 1998. If it passes, it will aliow business owners to choose whether their establishments should be smoke-free, allow smoking, or provide separate non-smoking and smoking sections. No matter what the outcome, the City Council has gotten the message that they went too far in supporting the original ban. Late last year, members voted 6-1 to permit smoking in most bars and in restaurant "accessory bars," which are separately-ventilated. Outside eating areas were also exempted from the ban, along with tobacco shops,~h tel and

,Discussion Draft/February 27, 1997 - page 3 meeting rooms used for private functions. The city also exempted the businesses it runs, including the ampitheater. But the compromise doesn't include the "Mom and Pop" businesses Ms. Gallant wanted to help, and it doesn't satisfy her. Far from it. "It's frightening," she says, with "the government getting in and legislating smoking." And what is she going to do about it? How about riding from Mesa to Washington, D.C., to deliver a copy of the U.S. Constitution? Ms. Gallant will depart from Mesa on horseback on tax day, April 15, with a scheduled arrival at the Capitol on the Fourth of July. Who says one_person can't stand up for freezlom? And could stand up with more style than Kat Gallant? Photo Caption: Ms. Gallant goes to Washington. Individual rights-fighter Kat Gallant will ride horseback from Mesa, AZ to Washington, D.C. in a demonstration of her strong support for freedom of individual choice. - - A # # #