City Council deliberates smoking ban

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East Lansing City Council discussed prohibiting smoking in three city buildings during its Tuesday work session, which would modify an ordinance requiring smokers to be 50 feet away from municipal buildings.

The council will take the suggestion under advisement as the city reviews its policy to comply with the Michigan smoking ban, effective in May.

Councilmember Kevin Beard introduced the idea at City Hall, 410 Abbot Road, citing beneficial health effects from the measure and widespread disregard for the current ordinance. He expressed concern about secondhand smoke risks at Hannah Community Center, East Lansing Public Library and City Hall because younger children and families frequent these facilities. Beard said space would be provided for employees to smoke.

“The big thing is a person may be perfectly within their rights to consume tobacco,” he said. “Should that right be extending that right to other people who don’t want to be exposed to that?”

Councilmember Nathan Triplett, however, questioned whether the solution was a new policy or better enforcement.

“What are we doing then that gets us to the point of where we have to just change the boundaries and we’re still not addressing the core problem, which is how is this supposed to be policed or is it just something that’s impossible to police?” he asked during the work session.

City Manager Ted Staton added he couldn’t recall one citation regarding the current ordinance since the policy’s inception, referring to the difficulty of enforcing smoking restrictions.

With Michigan joining 37 other states in abolishing smoking in public places in December, Beard said citizens have shown the direction in which they want to head. Taking the state’s cue, Beard said he didn’t think the proposed ban would be an “onerous burden” for people.

Overlay committee to form

The city council also approved the formation of a committee to review an ordinance allowing the restriction of rental licenses.

Staton said the city’s overlay policy — which enables residents to prevent rental licenses in a specified area if two-thirds of property owners agree — requires investigation concerning the impact it has on property values, neighborhoods and vacancy rates. Triplett said the committee’s focus would be fact finding, not policymaking.

Fred Bauries, an East Lansing landlord, said the ordinance should be examined because it is too easy for one or two neighborhood residents to preempt somebody from getting a rental license.

Bauries said his neighbor, a Lutheran pastor who was called to work in Minnesota, attempted to obtain a rental license for the home in which his family no longer lived but was stopped when an overlay district was created.

“The problem is the city has not set satisfactory standards,” he said.

“Citizens go around, basically tell half-truths and there’s no question about it, there’s plenty of evidence out there. They terrorize their neighbors into thinking that this is going to be a student rental with a bunch of kids in it, and everybody signs it.”

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