Glendale has received statewide recognition and been lauded for its comprehensive policies that protect residents and visitors from breathing secondhand tobacco smoke in outdoor dining and shopping venues. Glendale also has a moratorium on the number of smoking dens also known as hookah lounges operating in the city.
On Tuesday, Aug. 21, the Glendale City Council will be reviewing all of the current tobacco control ordinances and opening them up for possible updating.
There is a well-founded belief that there will be an effort to allow smoking back at outdoor dining areas and at the outdoor shopping areas throughout Glendale where city ordinances currently protect non-smokers from breathing secondhand smoke because it is currently prohibited.
There is also interest by tobacco business parties to open hookah lounges throughout the city. The fact is substantiated because the city has already received half a dozen applications to open up these indoor smoking dens after the council meeting at 6 p.m. Tuesday.
Is this the result of a new directive coming from City Hall that demands the permit office should be lenient and acquiesce to any litany of (seedy) economic development projects and proposals “at any cost” to fill the city's coffers?
I am afraid we must act most decisively in protecting our city from falling to the lowest common denominator of new business ventures that seek to open unseemly businesses in our family-friendly, healthy civic environment.
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