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Thursday, June 2, 2011
Smoking ban supporters seek $2M to enforce Ohio law
Backers of the 2006 voter-approved smoking ban on Thursday called on the Senate Finance Committee to put $2 million - $1 million a year - in the version of the two-year state budget pending before the committee to enforce the ban.
“We believe the people of Ohio, who enacted the law, want it to be enforced like other state laws,” Marianne Farmer of Centerville, senior policy director for the east central division of the American Cancer Society, said at a Statehouse press conference.
However, Senate President Pro Tem Keith Faber, R-Celina, the Senate’s number two leader, said it’s not likely the money would be added.
“There are a lot of meritorious programs out there that we just don’t have the dollars for,” Faber said.
Dr. Ted Wymyslo, Ohio Health Department director, requested the $2 million in his May 10 testimony.
The money is used for a complaint line and other enforcement needs, said Robert Jennings, department spokesman.
Find smoking ban complaints in your neighborhood.
Voters approved the Smoke Free Workplace Act in 2006 by more than 58 percent of the vote.
However, an analysis earlier this year by the Dayton Daily News showed that enforcement has been plummeting. From May 2007 to April 2011 state and local health departments had levied 2,353 fines worth more than $2.2 million to establishments found to have violated the law, the analysis found.
However, the health department and attorney general’s office had managed to collect just a third of that, the analysis found.
Farmer said at the press conference that most businesses follow the law but that the state needs the enforcement money to enforce the ban against companies that don’t.
Farmer and others at the press conference also asked the committee to add $2 million a year to pay for Ohio’s anti-smoking Quitline.
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TweetPoll: Sen. Brown leads GOP challengers by double digits
U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, leads potential Republican rivals in Ohio’s 2012 U.S. Senate race by double-digit margins, ranging from 17 to 21 points in a new survey from Public Policy Polling, a Raleigh, N.C.-based Democratic polling company.
In the survey of voters, released this week, Brown leads Ken Blackwell, the 2006 GOP candidate for governor and former treasurer and secretary of state, 51-33 percent.
Brown is ahead of Treasurer Josh Mandel, 48-31 percent. Brown leads former state Sen. Kevin Coughlin of Cuyahoga Falls, 51-30 percent. Blackwell, Mandel and Coughlin have expressed interest in the race, although none of them has officially entered.
Brown had similar leads against other possible GOP rivals, besting U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan of Urbana, 49-31 percent, and leading Lt. Gov. Mary Taylor, 50-31 percent.
“This does not look right now like it’s going to be a top tier race next year,” Dean Debnam, PPP president, said in a press release. “Sherrod Brown is popular enough and Republicans are struggling to find a strong candidate.”
Jahan Wilcox, spokesman for the National Republican Senatorial Committee, cautioned in a press release, however, that it’s early in the election cycle. Also, current Republican U.S. Sen. Rob Portman trailed Democrat Lee Fisher in early polls in their 2010 race, according to the release. The races differ, however, because in Portman-Fisher there was no incumbent.
“As Ohioans continue to learn about Brown’s liberal record, they will find that has spent the last 18 years in Washington maxing out the government credit card, raising taxes and driving up our national debt and that’s why we expect this will be one of the most competitive races in the country next year,” Wilcox said in the release.
Justin Barasky, spokesman for Ohio Democrats, liked the poll results.
“Clearly Republicans in Ohio and Washington D.C. aren’t happy with their slate of potential nominees, and find themselves stuck with an uncomfortable primary fight they were hoping to avoid,” Barasky said in an email.
“Whomever the Republicans decide to nominate, Sherrod Brown will be reelected because there’s no one in Ohio who fights harder for the middle class and working families.”
PPP surveyed 565 voters from May 19-May 22 and the survey had a margin of error of plus or minus 4.1 percent. PPP conducts its surveys through automated telephone interviews. No campaign or political organization paid for or authorized the survey.
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