Gov. Taft urges passage of Smoke Free's Issue 5

Publication Date: 2006-11-04

• Author:Anthony Gottschlich
• Publication:Dayton (OH) Daily News

Governor visits Centerville, a smoke-free city, to push rejection of issue 4.

Visiting this "smoke-free" city Friday morning, Gov. Bob Taft blasted Issue 4, the Smoke Less Ohio issue on Tuesday's ballot, and urged passage of Issue 5, Smoke Free Ohio.

"Issue 4 amounts to voter fraud," Taft told a gathering in city council chambers. "It's a wolf in sheep's clothing."

Issue 4 is a proposed constitutional amendment supported by big tobacco companies and the Ohio Restaurant Association. While it calls for banning smoking in most public places, it would permit smoking in bars, restaurants, bowling alleys and bingo halls. Restaurants would have to wall off their smoking areas.

That doesn't go far enough, warned Dr. Nick Baird, director of the Ohio Department of Health, who joined Taft at the press conference.