Relayed
by GLOBALink
The International Tobacco-Control Network Ducking out for a
butt just got trickier.
by BRIAN
FLINN, The Daily News Source: Halifax (NS) Daily News, 2002-05-22,
via tobacco.org Region:CANADA
Category: Smokefree Policies
URL: http://www.canada.com/search/site/story.asp?id=88491F14-8A27-405A-
A49F-04B3A037E998
May 22,
2002 Nova Scotians won't have to pass through a cloud of smoke
while entering workplaces if the government's new anti-smoking
legislation becomes law. The NDP got a change to the Smoke-Free
Places bill accepted by the Tory majority on the legislature's
law amendments committee yesterday. It will outlaw smoking within
four metres of doorways to offices, stores and other public
places.
"It's
important that people don't have to run a gauntlet to enter
a building," Cole Harbour-Eastern Passage NDP MLA Kevin
Deveaux said. Halifax Regional Municipality outlawed smoking
within five metres of building entrances in 1999, but the bylaw
has largely been ignored. Huddles of shivering smokers who aren't
allowed to puff at their desks can often be found outside doorways
to downtown office buildings and other workplaces.
Province
House is no different. A number of MLAs, including cabinet ministers
Jane Purves, Ron Russell and Ernie Fage have been ducking outside
for a butt; so have NDP House leader John Holm and Liberal MLA
Brian Boudreau. The building even has an ashtray at its Granville
Street entrance. Deveaux said that should stop. "We've
said a 100-per-cent ban on smoking; we've said a four-metre
buffer zone around every workplace in Nova Scotia; so I don't
have any problem in saying they shouldn't be smoking within
four metres of the building," he said.
Speaker
Murray Scott didn't seem to know smoking was illegal outside
the legislature. "If that would be the case and that's
the rule, we'll have to bring it to their attention and make
sure that it ceases," he said. Health Minister Jamie Muir
said he isn't aware of any Tories smoking outside the House.
