While the Northwestern Health Unit had hoped it would find out by mid-January if the provincial Health Services Review Appeal Board had decided in favour of its stance on banning smoking in all enclosed public places, it looks like it will have to wait a little longer.
“The last thing we heard was ‘the end of the month,’” Dr. Pete Sarsfield, CEO and medical officer of health for the health unit, said Tuesday.
“It’s very frustrating,” he added.
“But the legal wheels grind slowly.
Hopefully, they also grind righteously.”^Dr. Sarsfield noted if the ruling is in the health unit’s favour (that is, the appeal board decides the health unit has the right to enforce smoking bans in all enclosed public places on the grounds that secondhand smoke is a health hazard), its staff are poised to crack down with stiff fines for district business owners who refuse to “butt out.”^A business which refuses to stop employees or patrons from smoking on its premises will face a court-ordered ban and hefty fine, ranging from $5,000 for small businesses to $25,000 for corporations.
Dr. Sarsfield said he’s also hopeful the new provincial Liberal government will carry through with its promise to ban smoking in public places.
But he noted a news item a few weeks ago regarding Ontario’s bar and pub owners asking for $500 million in compensation from the provincial government if a province-wide smoking ban is put in place made him laugh.
“I love the logic of it,” he remarked sarcastically. “Fact, secondhand smoke is a health hazard.
Fact, second-hand smoke should be banned from workplaces where people have no choice to be exposed to it.
“And they’re saying it might hurt their profits if they stop knowingly harming people, and want to be compensated for it? It’s ludicrous.
“I’m assuming any attempts they make to get compensation will fail,” Dr. Sarsfield added.
The local health unit first directed all municipalities in the Kenora and Rainy River districts to ban smoking in enclosed public places in 2002—on the grounds second-hand smoke is a public health hazard.
Then last January, Dr.
Sarsfield said he intended to lay charges under the Health Protection and Promotion Act against businesses and workplaces that refused to comply with his no-smoking edict.
But resistance from some area restaurant and bar owners, under the moniker “Freedom of Choice Coalition,” who said the health unit couldn’t deny them their rights and hurt their business at the same time, saw the matter go before a three-person committee from the provincial Health Services Review Appeal Board this past spring.
Dr. Sarsfield admitted both the health unit and the group of business owners opposing the smoking ban will have a chance to appeal the ruling—regardless of what it may be—and so the end to the battle may not as near as he’d prefer.
Fort Frances Times
Local News from Across the Rainy River District
