from: http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/0425smokingcosts25.html

Chandler OKs smoking ban; foes, fans in funding battle
Alia Beard Rau and Edythe Jensen
The Arizona Republic
Apr. 25, 2003 07:20 AM

Lawyer fees. Little League. Propaganda brochures. Blues bands.

The smoking battle is getting expensive, and both sides are finding creative ways to get their message out.

Smoking-ban supporters Arizonans Concerned About Smoking along with ban opponents Citizens for Fair Non Smoking Laws and the Arizona Licensed Beverage Association are digging deep into their pockets.

Among the battles are:

Before a packed room Thursday night, the Chandler City Council voted 6-1 to approve a public-place smoking ban that includes restaurants but excludes bars. It will take effect in October.

A legal fight in Tempe over whether signatures gathered to put a smoking-ban amendment on the March 2004 ballot is valid.

The looming campaign surrounding that Tempe election, which is just less than a year away.

Numerous other cities, including Avondale, heatedly debating the merits of similar bans.

Crusade began here

The national smoking-ban crusade first got off the ground in 1966 when the late Betty Carnes of Scottsdale started the non-smoking advocacy group Arizonans Concerned About Smoking. Gilbert, Goodyear, Guadalupe, Mesa, Nogales, Santa Cruz County, Surprise, Tempe and now Chandler all have bans.

According to the Arizona Corporation Commission, Arizonans Concerned About Smoking has more than $250,000 in various bank and money market accounts.

"Betty Carnes had friends like Erma Bombeck, Sandra Day O'Connor and Barry Goldwater, and she had a well-to-do husband," group President Leland Fairbanks said. "She left us money in her will."

Carnes, who died in 1987 of stomach cancer at age 82, left the group $100,000 plus $45,000 a year in interest from an endowment.

Carnes and her organization are credited with convincing American Airlines in 1971 to create the first non-smoking sections on airplanes. In 1973, she convinced Arizona legislators to pass the nation's first statewide smoking-control law, which forbids smoking in public places, such as elevators, indoor theaters, libraries, art museums, concert halls and buses.

"I promised to make smoking a stigma rather than a social grace," she said in a 1987 interview with the Phoenix Gazette.

Carnes was an internationally recognized ornithologist who moved to Scottsdale in 1959 with husband Herbert E. Carnes and turned their 3-acre home into a lush bird sanctuary.

Fairbanks said the group also gets funding from the American Heart Association and others in the medical field. He said the money is used to send out newsletters, put on school programs, print educational material, sponsor Little League teams, fight legal battles and fund campaigns. According to Corporation Commission filings, the group received $16,000 in contributions and $59,000 in grants last year. It spent $2,500 on advertising, $1,200 on postage, $3,400 on printing and $32,000 on officer salaries.

Fairbanks said the group doesn't yet know the amount of the attorneys fees for the Tempe petition signature battle.

The group has spent virtually no money in Chandler, Fairbanks said. It has lobbied council members and gathered signatures in support of a strict ban.

President Rich Bank of the Tempe-based Citizens for Fair Non Smoking Laws said he's not sure how much money the group of Tempe business owners has, but members asked 235 Tempe bars, restaurants, bowling alleys and pool halls for $200 each.

"We've been somewhat successful because people realize they need to spend money to stop the hurt," Bank said.

Bars closing

Bank said bar owners have lost thousands of dollars since the ban drove smoking customers to surrounding cities. He said the ban has already forced several bars to shut down and expects more to follow during the slow summer months.

He said Tempe legal fees could total $25,000 and the push to persuade voters to support the proposed Tempe amendment that would allow smoking in bars cost $80,000.

Last week the blues band Freedom To Choose Smoking played its first gig, raising $120 for Fair Non Smoking Laws. A dozen bars, including some in Phoenix and Scottsdale, are selling certificates with a caricature of Fairbanks inside a circle with a red line drawn through him. The certificate states, "Stop UnFairbanks."

"We hope Fairbanks doesn't take it personally," Bank said.

Mike Cuneo formed Chandler Citizens for Fair Non Smoking Laws earlier this month. So far the group has spent $11 to print petitions and gather 2,500 signatures to submit to the Chandler City Council. The group opposes a smoking ban in bars.

The non-smoking Chandler resident owns Ballpark Pub in Tempe and Playa bar in south Scottsdale. He said that business at Playa was up 3 percent last year, while it fell 24 percent at Ballpark Pub.

"I don't want to see what happened in Tempe happen in Chandler," he said.

Member Bill Riddle, owner of Valle Luna Mexican restaurants, said the group has received no tobacco money or other donations.

"Fairbanks accuses people of having 'Big Tobacco' money, but that's just another one of their gross exaggerations and lies," he said.

Chandler Councilman Phill Westbrooks said he has been lobbied more on the smoking issue than any other.

"People on both sides have stopped me on the streets, approached me in grocery stores," he said.

Reach the reporter at alia.rau@arizonarepublic.com.

Please visit these sites which document David Dorn a liar and hate monger who makes up viscous lies about people he doesn't like:

Dorn Agency
Dorn Agency
Dorn Insurance
Dorn Insurance
Dorn Insuranse
Dorn Insuranse
David Dorn Agency
David Dorn Agency
David Dorn Hate Monger
David Dorn Government Snitch?