History > 2007 > USA > Towns

Mo. City Outlaws Internet Harassment

November 22, 2007
Filed at 12:49 a.m. ET
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
The New York Times

DARDENNE PRAIRIE, Mo. (AP) -- City officials unanimously passed a measure Wednesday making online harassment a crime, days after learning that a 13-year-old girl killed herself last year after receiving cruel messages on the Internet.

The six-member Board of Aldermen made Internet harassment a misdemeanor, punishable by up to a $500 fine and 90 days in jail. Mayor Pam Fogarty said the city had proposed the measure after learning about Megan Meier's death.

''It is our hope that by supporting one of our own in Dardenne Prairie, we can do our part to ensure this type of harassing behavior never happens again, anywhere,'' Fogarty said, adding, ''after all, harassment is harassment regardless of the mechanism or tool.''

Several dozen people broke into applause after the measure was passed.

Authorities have said they could not find a crime to charge anyone with in the case of Meier, who thought she had met a good-looking 16-year-old boy on the social networking site MySpace last year. But he began sending her mean messages and others joined in, her family said, then abruptly ended their friendship.

Megan hanged herself within minutes of receiving the last messages on Oct. 16, 2006, and died the next day.

Megan's parents, Ron and Tina Meier, learned about six weeks after Megan's death that the boy, Josh Evans, was not real. The boy was created by a mother down the street who wanted to know what Megan was saying about her own daughter, who had had a falling out with Megan.

Her father said he found a message from Josh, which he said law enforcement authorities have not been able to retrieve. It told the girl she was a bad person and the world would be better without her, he has said.

The four-page measure defines both harassment and cyber-harassment, essentially making it illegal to engage in a pattern of conduct that would cause a reasonable person to suffer ''substantial emotional distress,'' or for an adult to contact a child under 18 in a communication causing a reasonable parent to fear for the child's well-being.

City attorney John Young said constitutionally protected activity would be exempt. The measure would apply when one of the people communicating was in Dardenne Prairie.

During a break in the meeting, Fogarty embraced Megan's mother with tears in her eyes. She said she was sorry there had not been a law previously in place to prosecute Megan's harassers.

Tina Meier said she was thrilled that the city had passed the new measure.

''This is not a stopping point,'' she said. ''We're not done.''

City officials also passed a resolution encouraging state and federal officials to outlaw cyber-harassment and cyber-stalking. A state lawmaker has questioned how state law could be altered without running afoul of First Amendment issues.

    Mo. City Outlaws Internet Harassment, NYT, 22.11.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Internet-Suicide.html

Another La. Town Bans Saggy Pants

October 23, 2007
Filed at 11:26 a.m. ET
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
The New York Times

PORT ALLEN, La. (AP) -- With a councilman saying underwear ''is called underwear for a reason,'' another Cajun-country town has banned saggy pants from its streets.

The ordinance, passed unanimously Monday by the Port Allen City Council, requires pants to be secured at the waist so they do not fall below the hips, expose underwear or create indecent exposure.

Violators could be fined $25 to $250 for a first offense, and $250 to $500 for repeat offenses.

Council member Ray Helen Lawrence said she voted for the ordinance only because she got numerous calls from constituents who consider the look a fashion faux pas. Many said they associate droopy outerwear with crime, she said.

Council member Hugh Riviere said he didn't want to view other people's undergarments, saying it ''is called underwear for a reason.''

Stephanie DeLaney, one of two women asking the council to reject the proposal, said lightheartedly that she has lost weight, so she sometimes wears baggy pants.

''I'd hate for someone to call the cops on me for that,'' she said.

Seven other Louisiana communities have passed similar droopy drawers ordinances: Eunice, Shreveport, Alexandria, Delcambre, Mansfield, Lafourche and Pointe Coupee parishes. Two others -- Lake Charles and the St. Mary Parish town of Baldwin -- are considering them.

The city of Natchitoches rejected a similar proposal.

    Another La. Town Bans Saggy Pants, NYT, 23.10.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-ODD-Saggy-Pants.html

Towns Rethink Laws

Against Illegal Immigrants

September 26, 2007
The New York Times
By KEN BELSON and JILL P. CAPUZZO

RIVERSIDE, N.J., Sept. 25 — A little more than a year ago, the Township Committee in this faded factory town became the first municipality in New Jersey to enact legislation penalizing anyone who employed or rented to an illegal immigrant.

Within months, hundreds, if not thousands, of recent immigrants from Brazil and other Latin American countries had fled. The noise, crowding and traffic that had accompanied their arrival over the past decade abated.

The law had worked. Perhaps, some said, too well.

With the departure of so many people, the local economy suffered. Hair salons, restaurants and corner shops that catered to the immigrants saw business plummet; several closed. Once-boarded-up storefronts downtown were boarded up again.

Meanwhile, the town was hit with two lawsuits challenging the law. Legal bills began to pile up, straining the town’s already tight budget. Suddenly, many people — including some who originally favored the law — started having second thoughts.

So last week, the town rescinded the ordinance, joining a small but growing list of municipalities nationwide that have begun rethinking such laws as their legal and economic consequences have become clearer.

“I don’t think people knew there would be such an economic burden,” said Mayor George Conard, who voted for the original ordinance. “A lot of people did not look three years out.”

In the past two years, more than 30 towns nationwide have enacted laws intended to address problems attributed to illegal immigration, from overcrowded housing and schools to overextended police forces. Most of those laws, like Riverside’s, called for fines and even jail sentences for people who knowingly rented apartments to illegal immigrants or who gave them jobs.

In some places, business owners have objected to crackdowns that have driven away immigrant customers. And in many, ordinances have come under legal assault by immigration groups and the American Civil Liberties Union.

In June, a federal judge issued a preliminary injunction against a housing ordinance in Farmers Branch, Tex., that would have imposed fines against landlords who rented to illegal immigrants. In July, the city of Valley Park, Mo., repealed a similar ordinance, after an earlier version was struck down by a state judge and a revision brought new challenges. A week later, a federal judge struck down ordinances in Hazleton, Pa., the first town to enact laws barring illegal immigrants from working or renting homes there.

Muzaffar A. Chishti, director of the New York office of the Migration Policy Institute, a nonprofit group, said Riverside’s decision to repeal its law — which was never enforced — was clearly influenced by the Hazleton ruling, and he predicted that other towns would follow suit.

“People in many towns are now weighing the social, economic and legal costs of pursuing these ordinances,” he said.

Indeed, Riverside, a town of 8,000 nestled across the Delaware River from Philadelphia, has already spent $82,000 defending its ordinance, and it risked having to pay the plaintiffs’ legal fees if it lost in court. The legal battle forced the town to delay road paving projects, the purchase of a dump truck and repairs to town hall, officials said. But while Riverside’s about-face may repair its budget, it may take years to mend the emotional scars that formed when the ordinance “put us on the national map in a bad way,” Mr. Conard said.

Rival advocacy groups in the immigration debate turned this otherwise sleepy town into a litmus test for their causes. As the television cameras rolled, Riverside was branded, in turns, a racist enclave and a town fighting for American values.

Some residents who backed the ban last year were reluctant to discuss their stance now, though they uniformly blamed outsiders for misrepresenting their motives. By and large, they said the ordinance was a success because it drove out illegal immigrants, even if it hurt the town’s economy.

“It changed the face of Riverside a little bit,” said Charles Hilton, the former mayor who pushed for the ordinance. (He was voted out of office last fall but said it was not because he had supported the law.)

“The business district is fairly vacant now, but it’s not the legitimate businesses that are gone,” he said. “It’s all the ones that were supporting the illegal immigrants, or, as I like to call them, the criminal aliens.”

Many businesses that remain are having a hard time. Angelina Guedes, a Brazilian-born beautician, opened A Touch From Brazil, a hair and nail salon, on Scott Street two years ago to cater to the immigrant population. At one point, she had 10 workers.

Business quickly dried up after the law against illegal immigrants. Last week, on what would usually be a busy Thursday afternoon, Ms. Guedes ate a salad and gave a friend a manicure, while the five black stylist chairs sat empty.

“Now I only have myself,” said Ms. Guedes, 41, speaking a mixture of Spanish and Portuguese. “They all left. I also want to leave but it’s not possible because no one wants to buy my business.”

Numerous storefronts on Scott Street are boarded up or are empty, with For Sale by Owner signs in the windows. Business is down by half at Luis Ordonez’s River Dance Music Store, which sells Western Union wire transfers, cellphones and perfume. Next door, his restaurant, the Scott Street Family Cafe, which has a multiethnic menu in English, Spanish and Portuguese, was empty at lunchtime.

“I came here looking for an opportunity to open a business and I found it, and the people also needed the service,” said Mr. Ordonez, who is from Ecuador. “It was crowded and everybody was trying to do their best to support their families.”

Some have adapted better than others. Bruce Behmke opened the R & B Laundromat in 2003 after he saw immigrants hauling trash bags full of clothing to a laundry a mile away. Sales took off at his small shop, where want ads in Portuguese are pinned to a corkboard and copies of the Brazilian Voice sit near the door.

When sales plummeted last year, Mr. Behmke started a wash-and-fold delivery service for young professionals.

“It became a ghost town here,” he said.

Immigration is not new to Riverside. Once a summer resort for Philadelphians, the town became a magnet a century ago for European immigrants drawn to its factories, including the Philadelphia Watch Case Company, whose empty hulk still looms over town. Until the 1930s, the minutes of the school board meetings were recorded in German and English.

“There’s always got to be some scapegoats,” said Regina Collinsgru, who runs The Positive Press, a local newspaper, and whose husband was among a wave of Portuguese immigrants who came here in the 1960s. “The Germans were first, there were problems when the Italians came, then the Polish came. That’s the nature of a lot of small towns.”

Immigrants from Latin America began arriving around 2000. The majority were Brazilians attracted not only by construction jobs in the booming housing market but also by the presence of Portuguese-speaking businesses in town. Between 2000 and 2006, local business owners and officials estimate, more than 3,000 immigrants arrived. There are no authoritative figures about the number of immigrants who were — or were not — in the country legally.

Like those waves of earlier immigrants, the Brazilians and Latinos triggered conflicting reactions. Some shopkeepers loved the extra dollars spent on Scott and Pavilion Streets, the modest thoroughfares that anchor downtown. Yet some residents steered clear of stores where Portuguese and Spanish were plainly the language of choice. A few contractors benefited from the new pool of cheap labor. Others begrudged being undercut by rivals who hired undocumented workers.

On the town’s leafy side streets, some residents admired the pluck of newcomers who often worked six days a week, and a few even took up Capoeira, the Brazilian martial art. Yet many neighbors loathed the white vans with out-of-state plates and ladders on top parked in spots they had long considered their own. The Brazilian flags that flew at several houses rankled more than a few longtime residents.

It is unclear whether the Brazilian and Latino immigrants who left will now return to Riverside. With the housing market slowing, there may be little reason to come back. But if they do, some residents say they may spark new tensions.

Mr. Hilton, the former mayor, said some of the illegal immigrants have already begun filtering back into town. “It’s not the Wild West like it was,” he said, “but it may return to that.”

    Towns Rethink Laws Against Illegal Immigrants, NYT, 26.9.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/26/nyregion/26riverside.html?hp

San Francisco to Offer Care for Every Uninsured Adult

September 14, 2007
The New York Times
By KEVIN SACK

SAN FRANCISCO — Since contracting polio at age 2, Yan Ling Ho has lived with pain for most of her 52 years. After she immigrated here from Hong Kong last year, the soreness in her back and joints proved too debilitating for her to work.

That also meant she did not have health insurance. Not wanting to burden her daughter, who was already paying her living expenses, Ms. Ho delayed doctors’ visits and battled her misery with over-the-counter medications.

“Sometimes the pain was so bad, I would just cry,” she said. “I didn’t know what else to do.”

Last month, unable to bear her discomfort any longer, Ms. Ho went to North East Medical Services, a nonprofit community clinic on the edge of Chinatown, and discovered to her delight that she qualified for a new program that offers free or subsidized health care to all 82,000 San Francisco adults without insurance.

The initiative, known as Healthy San Francisco, is the first effort by a locality to guarantee care to all of its uninsured, and it represents the latest attempt by state and local governments to patch a inadequate federal system.

It is financed mostly by the city, which is gambling that it can provide universal and sensibly managed care to the uninsured for about the amount being spent on their treatment now, often in emergency rooms.

After a two-month trial at two clinics in Chinatown, the program is scheduled to expand citywide to 20 more locations on Sept. 17.

Whether such a program might be replicated elsewhere is difficult to assess. In addition to its unique political culture, San Francisco, with a population of about 750,000, has the advantages of compact geography, a unified city-county government, an extensive network of public and community clinics and a relatively small number of uninsured adults. Virtually all the city’s children are covered by private insurance or government plans.

At the bustling North East Medical Services clinic, where the staff and the signs are multilingual, doctors and nurses are trying to build trust with patients who may have last sought treatment from an herbalist. Families crowd the elevators, as teenagers help parents and grandparents navigate the system. Patients like Ms. Ho say they hope their access to the clinic’s services will bring them independence, and a chance to work.

Healthy San Francisco provides uninsured San Franciscans with access to 14 city health clinics and 8 affiliated community clinics, with an emphasis on prevention and managing chronic disease. It is, however, not the same as insurance because it does not cover residents once they leave the city.

After a phased start-up, the city plans to bring private medical networks into the program next year, expanding the choice of doctors. Until November, enrollment will be limited to those living below the federal poverty line ($10,210 for a single person; $20,650 for a family of four). Then it will open to any resident who has been uninsured for at least 90 days, regardless of income or immigration status.

Only then will city officials learn whether the program appeals to middle-class workers, who make up a growing share of the uninsured. And only then can they test whether San Francisco has the medical infrastructure to handle the desired increase in demand, and to do so without raising taxes.

So far, enrollment has exceeded expectations. The city projected that 600 to 1,000 people would sign up by the end of August. More than 1,300 did, even though officials have done little marketing. They hope to enroll about 45,000 people — more than half the city’s uninsured — in the first year. Some clinics are adding night hours and small numbers of workers.

“We really didn’t know what the interest level would be, so we’re very pleased,” said Mayor Gavin Newsom. “At the same time, we don’t want overexuberance yet because we don’t want to fall of our own weight.”

At the two pilot clinics, efforts are first made to qualify patients for Medicaid or other state and federal insurance programs. Those left over receive a Healthy San Francisco card that makes them eligible for primary care, dental exams, mental health and substance abuse services, hospitalization, radiology and prescription drugs.

Because the coverage is not portable, officials believe that people with private insurance will have little incentive to drop their policies to take advantage of the city’s cut-rate services.

Like Ms. Ho, many of those enrolling were already using the city’s health clinics — or the emergency room at San Francisco General Hospital — in times of acute need, like an asthma attack or stroke. About 57,000 of the 82,000 uninsured San Franciscans have used the city’s health system at some point.

But the new program hopes to persuade them to become regulars who regard their neighborhood clinic as a medical home. Once enrolled, patients are assigned a physician and encouraged to get blood pressure checks, mammograms and other screenings.

“We had a system that was not a system, and was based on episodic visits for chronic and acute care,” said Dr. Mitchell H. Katz, the city health director. “The idea that you should come get a cholesterol test, that didn’t happen.”

Nor was it uncommon for patients to ignore doctors’ orders because of cost. Before the program started in July, a clinic doctor had ordered X-rays and blood tests for Ms. Ho, but she never got them.

“Now I feel more comfortable coming in to get services and following the doctor’s instructions,” she said, speaking through an interpreter. She added that she recently had the recommended tests and is waiting for results.

The program was born of the city’s impatience with federal and state inaction, Dr. Katz said. In 1998, voters overwhelmingly endorsed universal access to health care in a citywide referendum. Over the years, city officials explored ways to provide universal insurance but, like other governments, could not figure out how to pay for it.

“What we did next was profound and simple,” said Mr. Newsom, who shepherded the program with Supervisor Tom Ammiano. “We asked a different question. We asked: How do we provide universal health care to all uninsured San Franciscans? And that one modest distinction allowed us to answer the question we hadn’t been able to answer for a decade.”

Tangerine M. Brigham, the program’s director, projects that it will cost $200 million the first year, and Mr. Newsom expects to finance it without a tax increase. The city already spends about that much on care for the uninsured, and that money will essentially be redirected to Healthy San Francisco.

The program was also selected by the state to receive a three-year federal grant worth $24 million a year for expanding access to care. And because enrollees are still uninsured, they remain eligible for state and federal benefits, like discounts on AIDS drugs.

Patients are asked to contribute nominal amounts through membership fees and co-payments that vary by income.

Those from families with incomes below the federal poverty line pay nothing. Those who earn more pay quarterly fees that range from $60 to $675, which is the rate for those with incomes above 500 percent of the poverty level ($51,050 for a single; $103,250 for a family of four). That is where the subsidy ends. The co-payments range from $10 to $20 for a clinic visit and from $200 to $350 for an inpatient stay.

A final financing mechanism has placed the program in legal jeopardy. To make sure the new safety net does not encourage businesses to drop their private insurance, the city in January will begin requiring employers with more than 20 workers to contribute a set amount to health care. The Healthy San Francisco program is one of several possible destinations for that money, with others being private insurance or health savings accounts.

Late last year, the Golden Gate Restaurant Association challenged that provision in federal court, arguing that it violates a law governing employer health benefits. A judge has scheduled a hearing for early November.

Mr. Newsom, a restaurateur and former member of the association, said the program would work only if accompanied by an employer mandate. But he said the city would have contingencies if it lost in court. “It may set us back,” he said, “but it’s not going to end this program.”

    San Francisco to Offer Care for Every Uninsured Adult, NYT, 14.9.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/14/us/14health.html?hp

Vt. Town Considers Banning Nudity

July 16, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 3:41 a.m. ET
The New York Times

BRATTLEBORO, Vt. (AP) -- Topless women on parade? That was fine. Teenagers loitering in the buff, in a downtown parking lot? No problem. Naked sunbathers at swimming holes? It was just au naturel.

But a senior citizen in his birthday suit, walking through the center of town on a Friday night, wearing only a fanny pack? That's where Brattleboro draws a fig leaf.

After years of allowing public nudity, the town famous for its strip-and-let-strip attitude is considering banning it in parts of town, saying naked notoriety has begun drawing people here and is offending locals.

The town's Select Board plans to introduce an emergency ordinance banning nudity in some parts of town Tuesday.

''Just because you can doesn't mean you should,'' said Select Board member Dick DeGray. ''You can't go into a store and buy an adult magazine until you're 18, and yet you can walk down the street in Vermont and see naked people. There's something wrong with that picture.''

On July 6, a 68-year-old man showed up naked downtown, walking the streets during Gallery Walk, a monthly social event in which people roam downtown, stopping in art galleries and shops. Gallery owner Suzanne Corsano was locking up for the night when she encountered him on a sidewalk.

''Naked people don't impress me,'' said Corsano, 60. ''But to be walking down the street like that. I just looked straight at him, and he looked down. He was trying to get me to look down there, but I wouldn't.''

The man told residents he was from Arizona and had decided to vacation in Brattleboro after reading about its public nudity freedom on the Internet.

Vermont has no state laws against public nudity, although a handful of cities and towns have enacted anti-nudity ordinances.

Brattleboro flirted with the idea of an anti-nudity ordinance last summer when a group of teenagers took to hanging around a downtown parking lot in the nude, which led to national publicity and triggered telephone calls from curious people in faraway places.

''They'll call up and say, `So, I hear you've got a lot of naked people running around town,''' said Jerry Goldberg, executive director of the Brattleboro Area Chamber of Commerce.

Some would-be visitors call to say they are putting off their planned visit because they're worried about public nudity, he said. Town officials worry, too: The idea of naked people spoiling Gallery Walk night by scaring away families with children is chilling.

''Every time you guys do one of your articles, people come from all over,'' said police Capt. Steven Rowell.

Last week, a man charged with a felony sex crime for dancing naked in the street pleaded to a lesser offense and got a one-year deferred sentence. Adhi Palar, 20, of Brattleboro, was among the group that dabbled with nudity last summer. He was cited because police said he was seen dancing naked and pulling a piece of clothing back and forth between his legs, rubbing his genitals.

Public nudity is far from an everyday occurrence, but many here want it regulated.

''It's time they did something about it,'' said Sherwood Smith, manager of Baskets Bookstore, which is located near a parking lot where naked teens gathered last summer. ''It hurts a store like this. People who are likely to buy used books are often conservative middle-aged people, or older.''

Not everyone agreed.

''I don't like the idea of them taking the rights to something natural away,'' said Rhiannon Curtis, 19. ''I like to swim naked, and that would be affected if they do this. Vermont doesn't need to conform to the rest of society's uptight rules.''

    Vt. Town Considers Banning Nudity, NYT, 16.7.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Naked-Town.html

Cajun Town Bans Saggy Pants

June 13, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 12:25 p.m. ET
The New York Times

DELCAMBRE, La. (AP) -- Sag your britches somewhere else, this Cajun-country town has decided.

Mayor Carol Broussard said he would sign an ordinance the town council approved this week setting penalties of up to six months in jail and a $500 fine for being caught in pants that show undergarments or certain parts of the body.

Broussard said he has nothing against saggy pants but thinks people who wear them should use discretion. ''It's gotten way out of hand out here,'' he said.

Albert Roy, the councilman who introduced the ordinance, said he thought the fine was a little steep and should be more in the $25 range, but he still favored the measure.

''I don't know if it will do any good, but it won't hurt,'' Roy said. ''It's obvious, and anybody with common sense can see your parts when you wear sagging pants.''

Broussard's advice for people who like their pants to hang low: ''Just wear it properly. Cover your vital parts. I mean, if you expose your private parts, you'll get a fine. If you walk up and your pants drop, you get a fine. They're better off taking the pants off and just wearing a dress.''

    Cajun Town Bans Saggy Pants, NYT, 13.6.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-ODD-Saggy-Britches.html

Detroit Council Urges Bush Impeachment

May 17, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 12:24 p.m. ET
The New York Times

DETROIT (AP) -- The Detroit City Council called for the impeachment of President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, unanimously passing a resolution sponsored by a Democratic congressman's wife.

The nonbinding resolution, approved Wednesday, says Bush and Cheney conspired to defraud the United States by ''intentionally misleading Congress and the public regarding the threat from Iraq in order to justify the war.''

It was sponsored by Councilwoman Monica Conyers. Her husband, U.S. Rep. John Conyers, is chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, where any impeachment proceedings would start. He has said he does not intend to move forward with any impeachment effort.

Other cities nationwide have taken up resolutions calling for impeachment, notably San Francisco, and some state legislatures are considering them.

    Detroit Council Urges Bush Impeachment, NYT, 17.5.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Detroit-Impeachment-Vote.html

Voters in Dallas Suburb Back Limit on Renting to Illegal Immigrants

May 13, 2007
The New York Times
By GRETEL C. KOVACH

DALLAS, May 12 — Voters in a Dallas suburb approved a contentious proposal Saturday to ban landlords from renting apartments to most illegal immigrants.

Just under 6,000 residents of the suburb, Farmers Branch, cast ballots, with 68 percent in favor of the ban.

In January, the city council unanimously approved the measure, Ordinance 2903, after rewriting an earlier version to allow for some families with mixed residency and citizenship status.

Hoping to overturn the ordinance, opponents forced the citywide vote. Now, the ordinance is scheduled to take effect May 22, but it must also clear several court challenges before it can be enforced.

“We will take this all the way to the Supreme Court, if that’s what we have to do,” the city councilman who introduced the resolution, Tim O’Hare, told a local television station, even as opponents vowed to do the same.

Farmers Branch, with about 27,000 residents, would be the first city in Texas to adopt such a ban, modeled after similar provisions in Hazleton, Pa., and other cities.

In other voting Saturday, balloting in the most expensive Dallas mayor’s race in history appeared to be concluding as expected: with none of the 11 candidates likely to win a majority of the vote, making a runoff election necessary.

On June 16, voters will be asked to choose between a former construction executive, Tom Leppert, and a City Council member, Ed Oakley. With most of the city’s precincts counted Saturday night, Mr. Leppert had 27 percent of the vote and Mr. Oakley 21 percent.

Mayor Pro Tem Don Hill was in third, despite an F.B.I. investigation into City Hall corruption that was initiated two years ago. Mr. Hill has denied wrongdoing.

The decision by the mayor of Dallas, Laura Miller, not to seek re-election after five turbulent years in office set off a scramble to lead the country’s ninth-biggest city.

In Farmers Branch, Mr. O’Hare said when he introduced the rental measure in November that residents were complaining that illegal immigrants were a strain on schools and city services.

A study by two University of North Texas professors that was commissioned by a group opposed to the measure, Let the Voters Decide, reported that enforcing the ordinance would reduce the city’s tax base, strain community relations and leave Farmers Branch vulnerable to lawsuits.

Farmers Branch is one of 88 municipalities in 27 states that have tried to pass rental bans or English-only provisions aimed at illegal immigrants since 2006, according to the American Civil Liberties Union. After months of emotional debate over the issue and accusations of racism from both sides, the Farmers Branch mayor, Bob Phelps, publicly expressed his opposition for the first time last week. Mr. Phelps said it was a waste of city tax dollars on what should be a federal issue.

Afterward, his house was vandalized.

    Voters in Dallas Suburb Back Limit on Renting to Illegal Immigrants, NYT, 13.5.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/13/us/13dallas.html

City Asks Court Not to Unseal Police Spy Files

March 26, 2007
The New York Times
By JIM DWYER

Lawyers for the city, responding to a request to unseal records of police surveillance leading up to the 2004 Republican convention in New York, say that the documents should remain secret because the news media will “fixate upon and sensationalize them,” hurting the city’s ability to defend itself in lawsuits over mass arrests.

In papers filed in federal court last week, the city’s lawyers also say that the documents could be “misinterpreted” because they were not intended for the public.

“The documents were not written for consumption by the general public,” wrote Peter Farrell, senior counsel in the city’s Law Department. “The documents contain information filtered and distilled for analysis by intelligence officers accustomed to reading intelligence information.”

Because the materials have not yet been used to decide or argue any issues in the civil lawsuits, Mr. Farrell said, “there is no right of public access.”

The documents show that the Police Department’s Intelligence Division sent undercover detectives around the city, the country and the world to collect information on political activists and others planning to demonstrate at the 2004 convention, according to a sampling of records reviewed by The New York Times that were the subject of an article yesterday. The records included intelligence digests and field reports from detectives, known as DD5s.

Those records showed that some of the surveillance was conducted on groups that planned to disrupt the convention, but the bulk of it was on groups and people who expressed no apparent intention to break the law. In at least some cases, the reports were shared with other law enforcement agencies.

Before monitoring political activity, the police must have some indication of wrongdoing, a federal court judge has said.

Yesterday a spokesman for the Police Department reiterated an earlier statement that the surveillance was conducted lawfully and that the preparations helped keep order when large crowds of demonstrators gathered in the city the week of the convention.

Christopher Dunn, the associate legal director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, said the revelations of widespread surveillance would increase pressure for the records’ release. “People all over the country will want these documents to see if they were spied upon,” he said. “That will make the debate about releasing them all the more important.”

In late January, the city turned over about 600 pages of intelligence digests to the civil liberties union and other lawyers suing the city on behalf of people who say they were wrongly arrested and detained during the convention. The documents are under court seal, but Mr. Dunn and a lawyer for The Times have asked a federal court magistrate to make them public.

City lawyers have described the intelligence documents as central to the city’s defense.

“They detail what information the N.Y.P.D. relied on in formulating its policies,” Gerald C. Smith, an assistant corporation counsel with the Law Department, wrote in a letter filed in federal court last month. He said the intelligence helped the police forecast how many people were coming to New York for the convention and had spoken about breaking the law.

Moreover, Mr. Smith wrote, the intelligence showed the city was justified in applying intensive scrutiny to the 1,806 people arrested during the convention, including fingerprinting more than a thousand people who faced charges no more serious than traffic tickets. Some were detained as long as two days for minor offenses.

“The decisions to adopt those policies were based in large part upon intelligence that had been gathered regarding the number of individuals planning to attend the R.N.C. in some capacity and the number of groups and individuals intending to, or at least professing to intend to, engage in unlawful behavior,” Mr. Smith wrote.

In ruling that some of that information could be used by the city for its defense, a federal magistrate judge said that a debate over security and First Amendment rights would come to a head in the litigation.

“The questions posed by these cases have great public significance,” the judge, James C. Francis IV of Federal District Court in Manhattan, wrote on March 12. “At issue is the proper relationship between the free speech rights of protesters and the means used by law enforcement officials to maintain public order.”

One group that learned it had been the subject of an intelligence report, Billionaires for Bush, offered a lighthearted response to the news. The group, a satirical troupe, dresses in tuxedos and gowns to provide faux endorsements of the administration.

Marco Ceglie, a national co-chairman who performs as Monet Oliver DePlace, said a member of the group known as Meg A. Buck had issued a statement: “We suspect they were looking for stock tips.”

    City Asks Court Not to Unseal Police Spy Files, NYT, 26.3.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/26/nyregion/26infiltrate.html?hp

Council Moves Toward Ban on Metal High School Bats

March 13, 2007
The New York Times
By SEWELL CHAN

New York City would become one of the first cities in the country to prohibit the use of metal bats in high school baseball games, under a bill that a City Council committee approved yesterday and that the full Council is considered all but certain to pass tomorrow.

The issue has sharply divided youth baseball leagues, coaches, players and fans. Industry groups have hired lobbying and public relations firms to oppose the bill, while parents of players severely injured by balls hit off metal bats have given tearful testimony in support of it.

Even players from Major League Baseball, which uses only wood bats, have taken positions: Mike Mussina, a Yankees pitcher, is against the ban; John Franco, a former Mets pitcher, is for it.

The Council’s Youth Services Committee approved the bill on a 4-to-0 vote. The bill has 32 sponsors and the support of the Council speaker, Christine C. Quinn. They would need 34 votes, two-thirds of the 51 members on the Council, to override a veto by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg.

“The mayor has some skepticism both about whether this bill fixes the problem it says it does and whether this is something the government should be doing,” a mayoral spokesman, Stu Loeser, said yesterday. “He has made no decision about a veto.”

According to the Council, it would cost the city’s public high schools $253,500 to replace 5,070 metal or metal-composite bats used by 169 baseball teams with wood bats, and $67,600 a year thereafter to replace broken wood bats. The bill’s sponsors said they would ask donors to defray the costs for private and parochial schools.

The bill’s leading proponent, Councilman James S. Oddo, said that youth baseball regulatory bodies had failed to respond to highly publicized episodes in which children were critically injured by balls hit with metal bats.

“Where the overseeing bodies have failed to live up to their responsibility to protect these kids, it falls into our laps,” Mr. Oddo, Republican of Staten Island, said at a committee hearing yesterday before the vote.

Critics of metal bats say that a batted ball flies faster off a metal bat than off a wood one. As a result, they say, the ball may strike a young pitcher in the head before he has a chance to protect himself.

But David A. Ettinger, a Detroit lawyer for Easton Sports, a leading bat maker based in Van Nuys, Calif., said there were no reliable studies to establish greater risk to players from metal bats. “It is fundamentally illogical and has no scientific support,” he said of the bill.

The New York City bill would require that only wood bats be used in competitive high school baseball games, effective Sept. 1. An earlier version of the bill, introduced in 2001, would have covered Little League and independent leagues as well, but Mr. Oddo narrowed the proposal to gain broader support within the Council.

In New Jersey, a State Assembly committee voted in October to approve a broader bill that would ban metal and metal-composite bats from league and school baseball games played by children 17 and younger. The full Assembly and the Senate have not yet voted on it.

The North Dakota High School Activities Association has banned nonwood bats, starting this spring.

But New York appears likely to be among the first cities to enact legislation banning nonwood bats.

The City Council heard testimony in October from Debbie Patch of Miles City, Mont., whose 18-year-old son, Brandon, was killed by a ball in a high school game on July 25, 2003. Yesterday, the Council heard from Joseph Domalewski of Wayne, N.J., whose 12-year-old son, Steven, was critically injured in a game on June 6, 2006. Brandon was hit in the head, and Steven in the chest, with balls hit by metal bats.

Two high school baseball coaches testified in favor of the ban. Jack Curran, a veteran coach at Archbishop Molloy High School in Queens, said he believed that metal bats endanger pitchers. “We may need a screen in front of pitchers during games, if we continue using these bats,” he said.

Philip Romero, baseball coach at Christopher Columbus High School in the Bronx, said the “sweet spot” — the area on the bat where the batter makes the best contact with the ball — is larger on aluminum bats than on wood ones. “In my view, aluminum bats are no better than steroids for the game of baseball,” he said.

But several coaches, including Steve Mandl of George Washington High School in Manhattan, testified that the ban was unjustified. The New York Catholic High Schools Athletic Association also opposes the ban.

Little League Baseball and Softball and another league, Protect Our Nation’s Youth, oppose the ban. USA Baseball, the governing body for amateur baseball, offered to finance a one-year independent study of the frequency and severity of injuries associated with metal and wood bats, with input from the Council, but Mr. Oddo rejected the idea.

Metal bats were introduced in the early 1970s as a cost-saving alternative to wood bats, and by the early 1980s, a consensus had emerged among players and coaches that metal bats outperform wood ones. The National Collegiate Athletic Association first adopted guidelines for limiting bat performance in 1998.

Researchers from Brown University found in 2001 that baseballs hit with a metal bat traveled faster than those hit with a wood bat, but could not conclusively identify the factors responsible for the difference in performance. Since then, the N.C.A.A. and the National Federation of State High School Associations have adopted rules requiring that metal bats perform no better than the best wood bats.

On Sunday, Richard M. Greenwald, one of the Brown researchers, wrote that he knew of no scientific data to support the notion “that the use of nonwood bats poses an unacceptable risk to children, particularly high school competitive players,” according to an e-mail message released by Easton Sports.

Bat makers have hired Suri Kasirer and Stanley K. Schlein, prominent city lobbyists, and Knickerbocker SKD, a media consulting firm. Mr. Ettinger, the lawyer for Easton Sports, said yesterday that the ban, if enacted, could face a strong legal challenge.

    Council Moves Toward Ban on Metal High School Bats, NYT, 13.3.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/13/nyregion/13bat.html

City’s Immigration Restrictions Go on Trial

March 13, 2007
The New York Times
By JULIA PRESTON

SCRANTON, Pa., March 12 — In a test case about the power of cities to crack down on illegal immigration, a federal trial opened here Monday in which municipal restrictions in Hazleton, Pa., are being challenged as discriminatory and overreaching.

City officials in Hazleton were the first in the country to adopt ordinances intended to drive away illegal immigrants by punishing local landlords for renting to them and employers for giving them jobs. The restrictions, which have yet to take effect, have been imitated by at least 80 towns and cities.

“The city has responded rationally to a very real threat,” Kris W. Kobach, a law professor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, said in the opening statement on behalf of Hazleton. Mr. Kobach described a surge in violent crime and gang warfare since 2005 that city officials attribute to a growing population of illegal immigrants.

The trial, before Judge James M. Munley of Federal District Court, is the result of a lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund. It is the first challenge to the municipal ordinances across the country to be heard in a federal trial.

The rights groups say the ordinances encourage discrimination against Hispanic residents, violate federal and state housing laws, and overstep the powers of a local government to deal with immigration, which has been almost exclusively a federal matter.

Witold Walczak, the legal director for the Pennsylvania A.C.L.U., said Hazleton did not have the authority to inquire into its residents’ immigration status. “Law regarding immigration can and must be passed only by Congress,” Mr. Walczak said in an opening statement, warning that the ordinances could unleash racial vendettas in which neighbors would make complaints about Hispanic residents based on their appearance.

Judge Munley’s ruling could be a major marker of how far local governments can go to limit illegal immigration. In another closely watched case, a state court judge in St. Louis on Monday struck down similar employment and housing laws adopted by Valley Park, Mo., a suburb of St. Louis.

In that case, the blunt ruling by the judge, Barbara W. Wallace, means that “as a matter of state law, no city in Missouri should be doing this,” said Linda M. Martínez, one of the lawyers who brought the challenge.

Most of the ordinances that followed Hazleton’s have faced state and federal challenges. So far, not one of the tougher measures has gone into effect, according to a roster compiled by the Puerto Rican rights group.

After first adopting the ordinances last July, Hazleton revised them several times in response to questions raised by opponents. City officials announced another revision on Monday, saying they would eliminate two words that appeared to leave open the possibility that complaints could be brought against tenants solely on racial grounds.

Hazleton’s mayor, Louis J. Barletta, the driving force behind the laws, said his basic purpose remained the same: to make Hazleton hostile territory for illegal immigrants.

“Illegal is illegal,” Mr. Barletta said in an interview. “There is no race in illegal.”

Mr. Barletta said he was spurred to action last year by the daytime shooting death of a Hazleton man, Derek Kichline, in which two illegal immigrants have been accused.

One ordinance withholds business licenses from employers who knowingly hire illegal workers. Another requires all tenants to register with City Hall, presenting proof of identification that the authorities can check against federal databases.

Mr. Barletta said that some Hispanic businesses had complained of losing customers and that some immigrants had moved away.

“We witnessed many people leaving in the dark of night,” he said. “We have to assume they were illegal aliens.”

Testifying against Hazleton, José Luis Lechuga, a legal Mexican immigrant who said he had lived in the city for 16 years, recounted how his grocery specializing in tortillas and chorizo and his restaurant with home-cooked tacos had failed in recent months. “Many people did not want to come to Hazleton anymore because they did not feel safe,” Mr. Lechuga testified. Hazleton residents “look at us as enemies now.”

Under cross-examination by a Hazleton lawyer, Harry G. Mahoney, Mr. Lechuga confirmed that his financial troubles had started well before the ordinances were passed, and he acknowledged that many of his customers might have been illegal immigrants.

Still, the court testimony left an impression of a harsh social change in Hazleton for some Hispanic residents.

“I saw a lot of fear” after the laws were adopted, said one resident, Agapito López, a retired ophthalmologist. “It was hurting my people. Latinos are a family.”

Judge Munley ruled Friday that the illegal immigrants who were plaintiffs in the case did not have to appear in court but could present their depositions as evidence, meaning they would not face cross-examination.

Last year, Hazleton also adopted an ordinance making English the city’s official language. That law is the subject of a temporary restraining order issued by Judge Munley, but it is not at issue in this trial.

    City’s Immigration Restrictions Go on Trial, NYT, 13.3.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/13/us/13hazleton.html

Anti - Smoking American Milestone Reached

January 20, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 3:15 a.m. ET
The New York Times

RENO, Nev. (AP) -- Thirty years after it began as just another quirky movement in Berkeley, Calif., the push to ban smoking in restaurants, bars and other public places has reached a national milestone.

For the first time in the nation's history, more than half of Americans live in a city or state with laws mandating that workplaces, restaurants or bars be smoke-free, according to Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights.

''The movement for smoke-free air has gone from being a California oddity to the nationwide norm,'' said Bronson Frick, the group's associate director. ''We think 100 percent of Americans will live in smoke-free jurisdictions within a few years.''

Seven states and 116 communities enacted tough smoke-free laws last year, bringing the total number to 22 states and 577 municipalities, according to the group. Nevada's ban, which went into effect Dec. 8, increased the total U.S. population covered by any type of smokefree law to 50.2 percent.

It was the most successful year for anti-smoking advocates in the U.S., said Frick, and advocates are now working with local and state officials from across the nation on how to bring the other half of the country around.

In a sign of the changing climate, new U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi banned smoking in the ornate Speaker's Lobby just off the House floor this month, and the District of Columbia recently barred it in public areas. Arizona, Colorado, Hawaii, Louisiana and New Jersey also passed sweeping anti-smoking measures last year.

''That's how life is now. They're banning smoking everywhere,'' said Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., an occasional smoker.

Susan Burgess, the mayor pro tem of Charlotte, N.C., said what's fueling the push is a U.S. Surgeon General's report released last June that found just a few minutes inhaling someone else's smoke harms nonsmokers, and separate smoking sections don't offer enough protection.

She said the report gave momentum to the anti-smoking front even in North Carolina -- the nation's No. 1 tobacco state -- and influenced Nevada voters to approve a ballot measure banning smoking at restaurants, bars that serve food, and around slot machines at supermarkets, gas stations and convenience stores. Nevada, where gambling and smoking had been assumed to go hand in hand, previously had one of the nation's least restrictive smoking laws.

''The Nevada vote shows that when people are given accurate information about the dangers of secondhand smoke, it's almost a no-brainer'' they'll support smoking controls, said Burgess, founder of the anti-smoking group Smokefree Charlotte.

Not all elected officials and business owners embrace the cause. They maintain such laws drive away smoking customers and cut profits.

''There's a fear that we would lose restaurant business to nearby towns if we passed a smoking ordinance,'' Moline, Ill., Mayor Don Walvaert said. ''Before acting, we would need real proof that cities have not experienced business losses because of smoking regulations.''

Nevada's smoking restrictions have been challenged in state court by a coalition of businesses. Opponents say the ban, which does not apply to the gambling floors of casinos on and off the Las Vegas Strip, is unconstitutional, vague and unenforceable.

In Columbia, Mo., one business owner displayed his displeasure at a new local ordinance banning smoking with a sign: ''Smoking allowed until Jan. 9, City Council banning beer next, and hopefully, karaoke!''

R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. plans to continue to fight smoking bans at adult-only businesses because it thinks such restrictions infringe on the rights of owners and adversely affect business, spokesman David Howard said from the company's headquarters in Winston-Salem, N.C.

But Columbia Mayor Darwin Hindman said studies show bans will not force smoking customers to go elsewhere. The Surgeon General's report reached a similar conclusion.

''I don't think it's a legitimate fear that bars and restaurants will lose business,'' Hindman said. ''From what I've read, smokers keep going to bars and restaurants even after smoking is banned. Smoking restrictions should be based on health issues anyway.''

Amy Winterfeld, health policy analyst for the National Conference of State Legislatures based in Washington, D.C., said smoke-free legislation is pending in at least seven states.

''When you see an issue like this passing in a number of states it does give it momentum in other states,'' Winterfeld said. ''It's certainly possible that a number of states will take it up this year.''

------

On the Net:

Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights: http://www.no-smoke.org

R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co.: http://www.rjrt.com 

    Anti - Smoking American Milestone Reached, NYT, 20.1.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Smoke-Free-America.html

Maine City Bans

Smoking in Cars With Children

January 19, 2007
The New York Times
By PAM BELLUCK

BANGOR, Me. — Tonya Henderson will have to be more careful where she lights up her Marlboros.

Bangor is banning smoking in cars if children are present, and Ms. Henderson, 24, is accustomed to having a cigarette when her boyfriend’s 7-year-old daughter is in the back seat.

She is just the kind of person City Council members had in mind when they passed the ordinance, which has delighted some and angered others and prompted complaints about invasion of privacy and even threats to boycott the city, Maine’s second-largest. The ordinance, which takes effect on Jan. 19, allows the police to stop cars if an adult is smoking while a child under 18 is a passenger. The smoker can be fined $50.

“I’ve heard people say it’s the smoke police or the Gestapo,” said Mayor Richard D. Greene, a pack-a-day smoker who says he shields his two children from his cigarette fumes. “I think it boils down to common sense: smoking is not good for you. Certainly if you have young children who are in the process of developing and growing, it’s even worse for them. You wouldn’t say, ‘Hey, here’s a bottle of mercury. Go bob it around.’ ”

Bangor is believed to be the first city to outlaw smoking in cars with children. But Arkansas, Louisiana and Puerto Rico recently enacted similar bans, and at least three other states are considering them: California, Connecticut and Maine, where proponents hope the Bangor ban will be a catalyst for a state law.

The laws, experts say, are part of a new frontier of cigarette regulation: moving beyond smoking bans in public settings like restaurants to crackdowns in private spheres like cars and, in some cases, homes.

At least seven states, including several with large numbers of smokers like Texas, Oklahoma and Alaska, prohibit or sharply restrict smoking around foster children in homes, cars or both. Some require homes or cars to be smoke-free for 12 hours before a foster child enters.

Judges determining parental custody and visitation have, in more than a dozen states, ordered a parent not to smoke around a child. An Ohio court last year gave custody of a 6-year-old boy to his father solely because the boy’s mother and her fiancé smoked.

Tenants in apartments have won several recent efforts to get smoke-free buildings or areas, or curtail secondhand smoke from neighboring apartments. In August, after requests from residents in Michigan, First Centrum Communities, which has housing complexes for the elderly in six states, made all its buildings smoke-free. A recent ruling in a New York case said landlords who allow tenants to be exposed to secondhand smoke could be violating obligations to make apartments habitable.

“I think because we have so affirmatively dealt with public places being smoke-free, it has simply made people think about places that are less public,” said Kathleen Dachille, director of Center for Tobacco Regulation at the University of Maryland. “If a worker in a bar is entitled to protection from secondhand smoke, how can we ignore what is happening to children?”

Gary Nolan, a spokesman for the pro-smoker’s group, The Smoker’s Club, said such bans and court decisions were based on “junk science.”

“At some point these busybodies have to stop,” Mr. Nolan said. “If we can give our rights up to personal property, the nose of the camel is in the tent and there’s no telling how far we can go. I’m telling you the high-fat craze is next.”

With most of the wave of smoking bans being so new, early enforcement has generally involved warnings, a tactic Bangor will start with, along with a radio campaign. Proponents hope the mere existence of such laws causes people to curb smoking.

The efforts have gained steam from a 2006 surgeon general’s report that strongly indicted secondhand smoke, especially for harming children. While the antismoking movement is clearly supportive, many private-sphere efforts have come from individuals.

In Connecticut, a ban on smoking in cars just introduced in the legislature was the brainchild of Justin Kvadas of East Hartford, who was 9 and riding home from his Tae Kwon Do class last year when the idea struck him.

“It came to me, if you can’t drink or talk on the cellphone while driving, how come you can still smoke?” said Justin, now 10, whose father stopped smoking when he was born. His mother helped him e-mail his state representative, Henry Genga, and he collected 200 petition signatures, including from classmates and East Hartford’s mayor. “It’s bad if a baby gets dropped off at a day care and smells like cigarettes. It’s also bad for their lungs because their lungs are so small.”

In Arkansas, a seemingly unlikely place for a ban given its high smoking rate, the law passed overwhelmingly after being introduced by Representative Bob Mathis, who said, “Some people didn’t vote because they thought Mathis was pulling a joke.”

The law, which concerns children under 6, levies a $25 fine that can be waived if the smoker enrolls in cessation classes.

“If parents are smoking in the car, you know darn well they’re probably smoking in the house, and this law might be the only opportunity for that little child to have a breath of fresh air,” said Mr. Mathis, who quit smoking two years ago.

In Bangor, a city of 33,000 in the heart of rural Maine, the ban, proposed by a pediatric dentist and passed by a 6-to-3 vote, has ignited a flurry of reaction, not necessarily along predictable lines.

At least two council members who supported it smoke, including Patricia Blanchette, who strengthened the original proposal, which would have prevented police officers from stopping cars solely for the smoking violation.

“I am tired as a taxpayer of paying for people to take their children to the emergency room because they’ve had an asthma attack,” said Ms. Blanchette, who believes her smoking caused her son’s bronchitis. “Why are we taking these very, very fragile little bodies, putting them in a confined area and allowing people to blow smoke into their lungs?”

Another council member, Susan Hawes, a nonsmoker who is a medical assistant, opposed it. “We have so many people telling us what we can and cannot do in our own lives,” Ms. Hawes said. “Are we going to come back and say, ‘If you don’t get your child out there once a week to exercise ...’ ”

Among residents, Denise Savoy, a nonsmoker whose father smoked five packs a day and died of emphysema at age 78, opposes the ban, unconvinced of the health risks.

“Doctors are trying to say all these kids have asthma, ear infections,” Ms. Savoy said. “You know what — I had one ear infection in my life. My kids spent a lot of time around my dad, and my oldest two children had lots of ear infections and tubes in their ears, but my youngest two had none of it. My father was fine until about the last year and half of his life.”

She also worries that smokers might have withdrawal symptoms while driving and cause accidents.

Her oldest son, Chris Goldsmith, 22, said, “Probably health would go down even more if you ban it in cars because you’re going to have a lot more people smoking in the house. And, you’ve got a lot of smokers in the U.S. and this is going to keep them from coming here.”

Some nonsmokers, too, perhaps.

“I’ll just do my business elsewhere,” said Steward Atwood of Machias, who quit smoking 10 years ago and regularly shops in Bangor. “It’s a right being taken away from people.”

Still, the ban, which was endorsed by the Bangor Chamber of Commerce, was welcomed by many, who believe that any boycott of Bangor will be minimal.

Mary Gilmartin said it would help her protect her 9-year-old asthmatic grandson from friends and relatives who “just light up and they don’t ask.”

Lana Fields, 20, who smokes, but not in the car with her 1-year-old, called it “a good law.”

And Ms. Henderson, who has smoked since age 7 but believes cigarettes aggravate her epilepsy and diabetes, had a foot in both camps.

“Hate it,” Ms. Henderson said about the law. “But it’s good for the kids.”

Maine City Bans Smoking in Cars With Children, NYT, 19.1.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/19/us/19smoking.html