smoking ban debate strikes Northwest Indiana, specifically Lowell

It's funny to think deep down myself years ago, I thought other communities in Northwest Indiana would debate a smoking ban LONG before Lowell, Indiana, such as Munster or Chesterton. Some communities from this region actually have wisely chosen to pass on pursuing a local ban in the past, such as Hobart and Michigan City. I believe someone on Munster's city council once wanted to debate a local ban there, but it was never officially debated, as their city website once said the smoking ban issue would be brought up in a future city council agenda, but never was. There was a story in the Northwest Indiana Times paper right after the latest 2010 proposal from Indiana State Senator Charlie Brown for a statewide smoking ban died, that Gary City Council member was gonna introduce a citywide smoking ban proposal. Unfortunately, I'm having a lot of trouble finding the article as of right now, even doing a search on the Northwest Indiana Times website. If I do find the article on the Gary smoking ban, I'll post it later.

Anyway, here are some articles on Lowell's current proposal, and as much as I prefer Lowell not pass a local ban, it is ONLY fair that any adopted local ban should mirror Crown Point's ban which gave private businesses(including what 1 restaurant, and 1 bowling alley within Crown Point opted to do) the option to enclose a small area of their business with separate ventilation for smoking, and for adult-only establishments to choose to be smoking throughout if they want. Starting with this blog post, I will introduce labels/tags for all posts here on out, and I will soon do it with my past blog posts.

Latest articles on Lowell's proposed ban:
(from smug anti-smoking writer favoring it) http://www.nwitimes.com/news/opinion/columnists/mark-kiesling/article_e20c5e6c-f6e8-53dc-a5bb-42f2f9967fca.html
(1st reading of ban approved, and a commenter mentioned a Crown Point bowling alley chose to enclose their bar and make it an indoor smoking area, and the bowling lanes non-smoking. seems very fair to me) http://www.post-trib.com/news/2492192,locouncil0713.article
(article mentions a Crown Point restaurant owner got permission to enclose a room for smoking, written when CP's ban took effect in 2008): http://www.nwitimes.com/news/local/article_7a90d450-ea32-5e6e-b8a9-15a1a56f3973.html

(edit) Luckily, I finally realized I posted the Gary article on the Smokers Club forum, since the original website(turns out it wasn't Northwest Indiana Times, but the Post-Tribune of Northwest Indiana) has deleted the article:
http://www.smokersclubinternational.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=9918