Editor:
Further to the article about smoking by Caitlin Etherington ("Why it matters on the Coast," Coast Reporter, May 24), I hope that both Sechelt and Gibsons councils will take further action soon.
Thank you Ms. Etherington for stating so bluntly how behind Coast bylaws are.
Since moving to the Coast, I have often said that when we are told only 15 per cent of all British Columbians still smoke, half of that 15 per cent must live on the Sunshine Coast.
As a travel ambassador on the ferry for a while, on more than one occasion a visitor would comment about the number of people smoking, the lack of bylaws and surprise at how slack it is here. I've heard newly settled residents say similar things.
A couple of years ago, despite most other municipalities having done so, Sechelt council voted down a motion to extend the smoking bylaw beyond the basic provincial one, which does not go nearly far enough. At that meeting, one mind-boggling comment was: "I think these rules are becoming so inhibiting to people's free choice that I'm against it on that principle alone."
A few months later, I went to hear a presentation by medical health officer Paul Martiquet to Gibsons council about passing such a bylaw. I left that meeting in disbelief. This time I heard: "We can't infringe on people's rights more than we do" and "Smokers self-monitor themselves these days" and "This seems to be the fashion these days."
Martiquet must be so frustrated with the attitudes of these council members.
For everyone's health, it is time to bring smoking laws here in line with most other municipalities, including Whistler, Squamish, Horseshoe Bay, Powell River and the Lower Mainland.
Valerie Pusey, Gibsons
