Thanx Brian

And thank you for coming out tonight

My brothers and I are in the Bar business. There are those who would say that I am involved in this issue because I care about our bottom line …well I do …and what’s wrong with that anyway.

However I have more a vested interest in the legacy I leave my children … Like the basic rights guaranteed by the Canadian Charter of Rights. We will hear form Don Rittaler on the subject momentarily.

I want to talk briefly about two things that concern me … one, the issue of second hand smoke as a killer and two, the stress the attempted enforcement of this law is causing to all concerned.

The CRD would have you believe that exposure to second hand smoke is going to send you to your grave. CRD politicians bought into this argument and passed, and are now trying to enforce, the so called clean air bylaw.

They based their bylaw on a report from a US Environmental Protection Agency report that exposure to second hand smoke is a carcinogen….

The CRD lawmakers were so happy with this report they based the whole bylaw on its results and in fact the EPA report is quoted in the Law.

Well surprise, surprise … since then that report has been thrown out in a US State Supreme Court decision … I have a few statistics for you regarding the level of carcinogens in various substances … these are stats that were obtained from that same US Environmental Protection Agency…

lets start with mean old second hand smoke, level, 1.19 …
Chlorinated Water, 1.38 …
one Biscuit a day, 1.49 …
Two glasses of whole milk daily, 1.62 …
one pork chop a week, 2.12 …
Diesel emissions 2.60 …
and the biggest killer of all …. You guessed it … keeping pet birds … a whopping 6.7.

Bird lovers and pet shop owners beware … the CRD has you in their sights. By the way the common wisdom is that any risk factor below two is meaningless.

I don’t mean to treat the subject lightly because this is such a serious issue … but my point is we just shouldn’t take for granted what one level of government tells us.

The real killer here is stress … there are many of us facing the loss of our livelihoods due to this ill-conceived law …. Workers, owners, suppliers … we all have families …. We all hear story’s everyday about these smoke police intimidating tactics … neighbor against neighbor … business against business …. Patron against patron ….we hear that even some smoke police are off on stress leave … I hope to hear some of these stories from you tonight.

If the Politicians at the CRD are truly concerned about our health … give us back our smiles, get out of our lives and do what you are supposed to do … represent the people who elected you, not big brother us to our graves.