Editorial
On smoking, the time for leadership is now

It's time for leadership on the issue of smoking in O'ahu restaurants. A good place to start would be with Mayor Jeremy Harris and Council Chairman Jon Yoshimura.

The mayor and the Honolulu City Council have been waffling on the heated issue of whether to snuff out smoking in O'ahu restaurants off and on since 1995, and continue to do so.

Last week, council members Yoshimura, Romy Cachola, John DeSoto, Rene Mansho and Andy Mirikitani killed a bill that would have taken effect immediately if passed. They cited the post-Sept. 11 economic crisis as their reason for not wanting to turn off visitors who desperately have to smoke in restaurants.

Then this week, Yoshimura said he's "considering" supporting a new measure to ban restaurant smoking that would take effect six months after approval. Why would he think restaurants and smokers would be any more amenable to the prohibition next year?

They are never going to like it, but it's a public health issue.

As for Harris, he vetoed a proposed restaurant smoking ban in 1995 on the principle that the government has no business regulating such matters. He was coy about divulging his opinion on this year's proposed smoking ban, but after the council voted 5-4 to kill it, he said he would have supported a compromise bill.

Harris says he kept quiet because he didn't want to influence the council on how to vote. But he hasn't been shy about taking an early stand on other occasions.

For example, in 1997, Harris warned that he would veto any proposal in support of a high-voltage power line on Wa'ahila Ridge, saying the "The project is dead on arrival." The Hawaiian Electric Co. proposal to run an overhead 138,000-volt transmission line on 100-foot poles along Wa'ahila Ridge above St. Louis Heights has not yet come before the City Council.

At another time, Harris expressed his support for the restoration of the Waikiki War Memorial Natatorium before the council made a decision.

It is quite legitimate to be against the smoking ban, if that's your political choice. It is legitimate to be for it. It is legitimate to be for the kind of compromise that now seems to be surfacing. But why do we have to wait until after the vote to find out where our leaders stand?

It's an unhappy coincidence that the Honolulu county leadership's squishiness on whether to ban smoking coincides with today's 25th anniversary of the American Cancer Society's "Great American Smokeout."

This is one day smokers are urged to take a break so we can all breathe more easily. If only restaurants had a daily smoke-out supported by our elected leadership.