Valerie Parnell, Seminole County Watch columnist

There are few things in life that seem as distasteful to me as smoking.  Everything about it is unseemly.  It starts with the smoke itself.  Perhaps it is because I may be extra-sensitive to it. 

When a person lights up anywhere around me, even without seeing them, I know.  It affects my breathing, making it more labored while inhaling air that is mixed with smoke.

Beyond that, there is the smell, not only of the smoke as it is being produced, but also as it clings to everything it touches, from a person's body to their surroundings.  When you walk into a smoker's home, or place of business, it is instantly obvious.

Often, when smokers approach me, the smell of the smoke lingers from their body.  At times, it can be overwhelming.

Given my personal attitudes towards smoking, and all that is associated with it, there was an almost automatic reaction when I first heard about the attempts to open a cigar bar within the city limits of Oviedo.

The owner of a liquor store in Oviedo first sought approval of a cigar bar from the Oviedo City Council in November.  His request to open the bar in the Alafaya Woods Shopping Center was denied. 

The center is located at State Road 434 and Alafaya Woods Boulevard, within the Oviedo city limits.  Alcohol would be sold at the cigar bar, and city council members turned the request down, citing city ordinances that prohibited the establishment of businesses selling more alcohol than food.

Since then, the City Council has subsequently agreed to modify city rules so as to allow establishment of the cigar bar.  The new rules allow, among other things, establishment of businesses deriving no more than 49 percent of their revenue from alcohol sales. 

In so doing, they have seemingly maintained their desire for limits on alcohol sales while removing its ratio requirements to the sale of food.  In essence, they have created a loophole that allows the establishment of a business that was previously forbidden.

It saddens me that they have done so.  It also seems ironic to me that the cigar bar's location will be place it adjacent to a gym, where people go to improve their physical well-being.

Tobacco is the only product that, when used exactly as intended, will cause harm and sickness to the person using it.  There is no beneficial impact whatsoever that it affords, and the city of Oviedo is now giving its approval to an establishment that encourages the use of such a toxic product, as well as its merchandising.

It is one thing for a city to want to expand its tax base and encourage commerce within its boundaries.  It is another to do so at the expense of the health of its citizenry.

Were there not already laws established that would have prevented the opening of the cigar bar, no objection would be stated.  But the city intentionally and deliberately sought a way in which they could approve the opening of the bar.  To do so, they changed existing laws.

Whether one smokes is a personal decision, but there are things that society does that can influence the choices people ultimately make.  Much effort has been made to discourage children and others from smoking, and to make them aware of the dangers of doing so.

It is sad when city officials undercut the attempts of those messages by giving approval to an establishment whose primary product will only do harm to its users.  It is sadder still when those same city officials go far out of their way to do so.

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