Clearing The Air

Go ahead caller....I'm listening.......

Friday 4/29 Minneapolis city council member Natalie Johnson Lee agreed to meet with approximately 100 Mpls. bar / restaurant owners and foodservice vendors to find out why anybody was still in business....."haven't you all closed your doors and found work in city government yet?"

Truthfully though, she was one of the few council members who was willing to hear of the plight of bar& restaurant establishments, after one month of a smoking ban; which collectively it is estimated have lost more than $1,000,000 in revenues (foodservice companies, Smokeeter distributors, liquor vendor losses not yet accounted for).

I made sure to inform Ms. Lee of the St. Louis Park study which proved secondhand smoke is not a health hazard, as compared to OSHA guidelines; which dictate when an employee's health is or isn't at risk based on the federal agencies permissible exposure limits. The St. Louis Park Environmental Health Dept. duplicated study proves secondhand smoke is 150 times safer than OSHA permissible exposure limits (pel).

And I further, challenged her and the rest of the city council members to look into what organizations are funding nationwide smoking bans to the tune of tens of millions of dollars. Afterwards she asked me if I had a place she could readily find all that information, funny you should mention that, you could find all this information in the 20 various emails I've sent you, the other council members, county commissioners etc. over the span of the last 12 months.

She hasn't listened or read any emails over the last 12 months.........yeah......I'll hold my breath she's listening now. .............Hopefully, Attorney General Mike Hatch is listening though, I know in the past he has had a penchant for going after rogue agencies inappropriately lobbying our local politicians for smoking ban legislation, as well as pharmaceutical giants; with this scam he gets both in one investigation.

posted by marcus aurelius @ 12:55 PM