Advocates for a smoke-free Austin must collect at least 3,000 more petition signatures by Tuesday in order to get their referendum on the May 7 election ballot, according to a report presented Thursday by the Austin Office of the City Clerk.
The anti-smoking group Onward Austin calls for an ordinance that would ban smoking in most public places, according to health advocate and Onward Austin member Rodney Ahart. The group turned in more than 36,000 signatures Feb. 1, according to the report. Ahart said Onward Austin has been collecting signatures since November.
The City Clerk's Office validated the initial petition Feb. 10 and found it was inadequate for placement on the ballot. The Charter of the City of Austin requires that a petition must be signed by at least 10 percent of registered voters, but the city found that Onward Austin had only collected 33,438 of the 36,764 required signatures, after invalid signatures were thrown out.
The deadline to turn in more signatures is Feb. 22.
"We are going to continue to push forward until Tuesday," said Ahart, who is also the governmental relations officer for the American Cancer Society.
The proposed ordinance will give more protection from second-hand smoke by banning smoking from places such as restaurants, music venues, bowling alleys, pool halls and bars, Ahart said.
The current smoking ordinance went into effect June 1. It requires bars and restaurants to obtain a $3,000 smoking permit. Two kinds of permits have been issued by the city's Department of Health and Human Services: One unrestricted for businesses earning at least 70 percent in alcohol sales and one restricted for fully-enclosed, ventilated smoking areas for between 2 p.m. and 6 a.m. According to Health and Human Services, 243 establishments had applied for permits - 211 unrestricted and 32 restricted - as of Dec. 31.
The city's Environmental and Consumer Health Unit regulates compliance of the ordinance. In the first six months of the ordinance, 33 cases from 17 establishments went to municipal court for smoking violations, said Cecilia Fedorov, Health and Human Services spokesperson. So far, 15 cases have been resolved, but 18 remain pending.
Reports of a smoking violation can come from city health officials or citizens, and the health unit investigates each complaint, she said. Cases got to court after an establishment has violated the rules three times.
According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, 22.8 percent of Texans were smokers in 2002.
Smoking is the No.1 preventable cause of deaths and disease in the state, according to Dr. Phillip Huang, chronic disease medical officer for the Texas Department of State Health Services. Over 24,000 Texans die from smoking-related deaths each year, and 3,000 Texans die from second-hand smoke, he said.
"It kills more Texans each year than AIDS, heroin, cocaine, alcohol, car accidents, fire and murder combined," he said.
Brian Hummel, general manager of Sixth Street bar B.D. Riley's, said they tend to think of themselves as a family place, but lost underage patrons after the current smoking law was passed, since the ordinance set an age requirement for all smoking customers.
The city might eventually become smoke-free, Hummel said.
"I just don't like it to be half-and-half" he said. "It's either one way or the other way."
Onward Austin proposes a smoke-free ordinance similar to ones in New York City, Boston, Lexington, Ky. and El Paso which ban smoking in all public places.
Under the Texas election code, the Office of the City Clerk must verify 25 percent of the petition, according to Shirley Brown, Austin city clerk. She said her office consulted UT School of Business professor Thomas W. Sager in order to collect a random statistical sampling of the signatures. The City Clerk's Office then checked the signatures against Travis County and Williamson County voter registries and for any duplicate or invalid names.
Brown said she assumes she will receive another 3,000 to 5,000 signatures from Onward Austin by Feb. 22. It's difficult to estimate when the final count would be taken, she said, because of other petitions due at that date, among them the mayoral recall and petitions filed by city council candidates.
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