It was 2003, and the general public had their elbows up with local bars and restaurant owners on two sides of the controversial proposed Tobacco Free Thunder Bay bylaw.
A plebiscite in 2003 determined that almost 90 per of the citizens said, ‘yes, we want a bylaw to protect non-smokers,” particularly employees who had to work in smoke-filled environments. The bar and club owners wanted an exemptionbecause they felt it would quell business.
The smoke-free movement and bylaw development were driven by Simon Hoad, from the Thunder Bay District Health Unit, and Jim Morris, a volunteer and advocate for a smoke-free environment and long-time volunteer with the Heart and Stroke Foundation.
“The bar owners didn’t want this and the restaurant owners didn’t want it either,” Morris said. “We referred to them as the killer B’s — bars, billiards, bingo and bowling.”
They fought against it, because they thought they were going to go out of business. What we were doing was protecting the non-smokers, especially employees. Can you imagine being an employee in a smoky restaurant or bar for an eight-hour shift and people smoking all around you?”
Morris says they had 18 meetings at city hall to discuss the details of what a bylaw would look like. The meetings were led by Ron Barrett, who was a city bylaw enforcement officer. An additional 20 separate meetings were held to come up with a bylaw.
“We had to figure out what type of bylaw it would be, and what the ins and outs were,” Morris said. “I’ll never forget one of the last meetings when the restaurant association representative came with a letter stating that they would agree to a 100 per cent — and no exemptions workplace bylaw. It was worded that if you have employees, you’re not allowed to have indoor smoking, which suited everybody.”
After five presentations of the proposed new bylaw to city council, Morris called former councillor Joe Vanderwees their “hero.”
“Every time we made a presentation, Joe would get up and say, ‘We’ve got to protect people. We’ve got to protect citizens,” Morris said.
And so society has changed.
At the time of the implementation of the bylaw in 2005, Morris says, according to statistics, upwards of 80 per cent of people in Thunder Bay didn’t smoke. Today, 20 years later, that percentage has grown to around 94 per cent.
Morris says many young people don’t realize how nice it is to be able to go to places and not be surrounded by cigarette smoke.
“In fact, many children have no idea what an ashtray is,” he said.
“We fought long and hard, and we sometimes felt it was an optional battle. But I believe Thunder Bay was one of the first large major cities in Ontario that went smoke-free. The province of Ontario went smoke-free on May 31, 2006. We beat them by almost a year.”
