In Friendship, govt. interference is a 'smoking' gun - Friendship, MD, ordinance shows that government laws against smoking are getting extreme - Column

The campaign to stamp out smoking in this country now officially has entered the outer limits. No longer content with prohibiting smoking indoors, anti-smoking activists have turned their attention to the great outdoors.

The mayor of Friendship Heights, Md., a 32-acre suburb of Washington, D.C., has convinced his Village Council to declare the entire village a nonsmoking zone. The mayor's ordinance bans tobacco use on all but two of the town's public streets. The ban covers all other streets, sidewalks and parks. The regulation goes way beyond protecting nonsmokers from exposure to secondhand smoke. It stops people from smoking outdoors - which has no consequences for anyone except the individual smoker.

The village of Friendship Heights now has the most stringent anti-smoking law in the nation, and it will no doubt serve as a model for others. The mayor, to his credit, didn't try to hide his motives for the ban by claiming it was necessary for litter control or pollution abatement, as others have done.

The mayor claims that for health reasons he is trying to "persuade people to stop smoking with a little gentle pressure." Woe to the restaurant industry if the mayor becomes concerned about the weight or drinking habits of the villagers. He easily could decide that a "little gentle pressure" is needed to wean your guests away from fatty foods and alcohol.

The mayor's propensity to treat constituents as patients has serious consequences for all of the businesses in town, especially restaurants. Just as the tobacco and liquor industries are being targeted by the fringe groups as producers of drug delivery systems," the restaurant industry is coming under increasing scrutiny for serving their guests deadly doses, of fat and cholesterol.

A critic of the mayor's action asked if the Village Council "will next attempt to forbid people to eat hot dogs on village sidewalks because they are high in cholesterol and have little nutritional value." That concerns not so farfetched. The Center for Science in the Public Interest already has taken its complaints about the "dangers" of restaurant food to the public. In the past it has scared off patrons from eating certain types of food; now it is scolding operators over serving too much food. Most recently, it has condemned casual dining restaurants in saying, "It's high time that the industry began to bear some responsibility for its contribution to obesity, heart disease and cancer."

The attack by the CSPI may evoke a big yawn from our industry. After all, the group issues outrageous statements about food on a regular basis. However, its latest assault builds on the growing sentiment that it is OK to regulate personal behavior in order to "help" or "protect" people from themselves. It is precisely the sentiment behind the mayor's actions.

Many villagers dismissed the mayor's argument that secondhand smoke in an outdoor setting is a threat to their health. Some cited the dangers of car exhaust as a bigger problem. However, the mayor won the council over as he successfully couched the ban in terms that made it more difficult to argue with - after all, what's a little inconvenience if it is good for you?

The passage of this law combined with the growing "eat your vegetables" mentality of consumer groups creates an environment where government believes it is justified in regulating broader personal behaviorial patterns that have no "health" consequences for anyone except the individual consumer. In this picture the differences between a cheeseburger and a cigarette disappear.

The mayor of Friendship Heights cited the U.S. Constitution as justification for his smoking ban. It is likely that many others will embrace his interpretation of promoting the "general welfare."

What happened in Friendship Heights is yet another wake-up call for our industry. We no longer can afford to treat the workings of town councils and local boards of health as a spectator sport. These little skirmishes have a "big picture" fall-out effect on the way we operate our businesses and serve our guests. While federal and state regulators continue to worm their way into business operations and personal freedoms, we need to make time to participate in local government. If you don't believe it, ask the people in Friendship Heights.

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