Packet Editorial, May 19
By: EDITORIAL
One of the most difficult problems encountered in blazing any new trail is keeping sight of the forest for the trees. Sometimes the terrain gets so steep, the coverage so intense, the distractions and annoyances so numerous that it’s hard to remember why you set out on your journey in the first place.
For months, the Princeton Regional Health Commission has been cutting and slashing (perhaps “hacking” would be the more appropriate metaphor) its way toward a policy that would prohibit smoking in virtually all public places, including restaurants and bars. The proposed ordinance, if adopted, would be the most far-reaching in New Jersey. The commission is, indeed, blazing a new trail.
Not surprisingly, the commission has encountered any number of obstacles and irritants along the way. At various times, it has found itself engaged in conflict by hostile natives. And, for a while there, it looked like the commission might allow itself to get totally sidetracked.
Losing sight, briefly, of its broad policy objective of protecting patrons and workers in public places from the dangers of secondhand smoke, the commission let itself get hung up on the issue of whether the smoking ban should apply to private entities, such as Princeton University’s eating clubs. After considerable discussion, the commission decided to exempt the clubs; then, after rethinking the matter for a month, it voted to reverse course. A majority of commission members, recognizing that whatever route they take will ultimately lead to a court of law, expressed the view that they did not want to be diverted off the broad path of protecting public health by this narrow procedural detour.
Such side issues could easily have consumed the commission for months, or even years. The proposed smoking ban is an extremely controversial issue; the debate often gets heated and emotional; it would be so easy for the commission to go off in a hundred different directions, or to become so utterly absorbed in a detailed point of law that the whole objective of its effort would be forgotten.
To their credit, the commission did not allow this to happen. Instead, at a special meeting scheduled for June 1, the commission will almost certainly approve an ordinance that will outlaw smoking in virtually all public places in Princeton. It will almost certainly be sued immediately thereafter by the owners of some local restaurants and bars, along with trade associations representing restaurant and bar owners statewide — and, perhaps, some national smokers’-rights groups and tobacco interests as well. The suit will almost certainly be joined on the other side by state and national advocacy groups active in the field of health care, who will bring in heart, lung and cancer experts to testify in support of the commission’s action.
A lengthy judicial proceeding will follow, which will probably center around the rather narrow question of whether a 1985 statute governing smoking in public places supersedes any local ordinance that is more restrictive or comprehensive than the state law.
In the end, the courts will either rule that local health authorities do have the right to ban smoking in public places — in which case the Princeton ordinance will stand — or the battle will shift to the Legislature, where losing sight of the forest for the trees is more than a potential danger; it’s a way of life. All the more reason to thank the Princeton Regional Health Commission for keeping its eyes wide open — and its feet firmly planted on solid ground.