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

a newspaper editorial calls for NKY Action and ban supporters to release the NKY ban draft proposal

The first article was written yesterday by blogger Paul McKibben, and the 2nd article was an editorial written today from the North Kentucky Enquirer calling for the latest draft of the 3-county NKY ban proposal to be made public immediately. I 100% support the call for it to be made public, not to mention hiding the proposal(except for ban proponents seeing the proposal) is a total violation of both Kentucky's open meetings law, and also their public records law. The editorial also makes a great mention of the fact when 2 competing proposals were put on the ballot in summer 2006 for the November 2006 Ohio statewide election, both state smoking ban proposals were made public before being put on the ballot.

Paul McKibben's blog entry mentioning the appalling secrecy of the draft proposal:
http://nky.cincinnati.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?Category=blog25&plckController=Blog&plckBlogPage=BlogViewPost&U=c7553bdc-919b-42b9-9011-baf9c96f7123&plckPostId=Blog%3ac7553bdc-919b-42b9-9011-baf9c96f7123Post%3a2407caee-2261-4960-a699-8e79644447b4&plckScript=blogScript&plckElementId=blogDest

North Kentucky Enquirer's editorial calling for the draft to be publicly released:
http://nky.cincinnati.com/article/AB/20100719/EDIT01/7200358/Ky-smoking-ban-ordinance-clouded-in-secrecy