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Smoke Free Carthage now numbers 1,200
Carthage Press
1/19/2010
CARTHAGE, Mo. -
Smoke Free Carthage, a group that’s pushing for a smoking ban in all public places within the Maple Leaf City, has reached 1,200 members — and counting.
T.J. Teed, the group’s director as well as Carthage City Council member, spoke briefly during Tuesday’s Carthage Caring Communities Coalition monthly meeting.
One of the group’s primary goals is to convince as many people as possible that smoking and second-hand smoke are to be avoided at all costs.
“Things are going well,” he said Tuesday. “We’ve written an ordinance plan and (will) propose it to the City Council at the end of April.”
Last year, Teed introduced a similar ordinance that banned smoking inside restaurants within Carthage city limits. The proposal was eventually tabled without a vote.
At the time Teed said, “We would propose to the council or any committees to remove smoking from all public places. It wouldn’t be just from restaurants, it would be all public places, anywhere from schools to restaurants to bars, anywhere where the public is involved.”
Teed said he has spoken with groups in neighboring Webb City and Carl Junction who hope to have similar ordinances adopted by their respective councils later this year. And a Joplin anti-smoking group, he said, has between 1,000 and 1,200 members, as well.
Some time in May, Teed said, the group plans to sponsor a major entertainment event in the area, though no names or specific dates have been finalized.
The group has fan pages on both MySpace and Facebook, and there’s also a Web site — www.smokefreecarthage.org.
The group has partnered with Carthage Caring Communities, the Alliance of Southwest Missouri, and the Joplin-based Clean-Air Project.
In opposition, a group of Carthage and area residents have created the “Stop Smoke Free Carthage” group that opposes any sort of smoking bands inside all public places within Carthage.
“It’s not so much the ban on smoking as it is the government taking away our civil liberties and private property rights that is the issue,” reads a statement on the group’s Facebook page. “We are a group of people that do not believe the government should impose someone’s beliefs on our lives.”
The group has 42 members.
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