Do you understand the risk

they are taking? Businesses require profits to survive! As a flight attendant

when we had meaningless "smoking sections" on airplanes like

you still find today in other restaurants, we quickly came to realize

that our smokers were our drinkers. We sold almost all of our liquor in

the smoking section. Liquor is a much higher profit item than food. It

carries a higher markup while it has little spoilage and requires less

time and effort in preparation.

Our Ruby Tuesdays are risking

their profits by being the first to encourage responsible smoking. They

want to help smokers to recognize that by simply stepping outside to smoke

it limits their own exposure to the dangers found in tobacco smoke to

just that smoke that is actually giving them the nicotine they crave.

responsible smokers and responsible businesses then also protect everyone

else's health. No one needs to sit in the smoker's overflowing wastes

the wastes that can make you sick enough to die when the smoker simply

steps outside to smoke.

In Peachtree City we offered

another solution but so far not even one restaurant has chosen to offer

smoking in a separately ventilated area which lets the smokers sit in

their own waste while no one else has to. But it takes more time, effort

and expense so you will only find it in our industrial park (reflecting

more computer and flammability concerns).

Remember, health issues (like

tobacco smoke exposure) work the same way education and retirement security

work. You have to make the effort today, in spite of the fact that you

won't see the benefits until later in life.

Or you can continue to do what

so many irresponsible restaurants, irresponsible businesses, irresponsible

smokers and other irresponsible Americans do. Just ignore the problem,

hope someone else will take care of it for you, because doing nothing

is easier than making the effort to fix the problem. Also, the price of

doing nothing doesn't come due until later in life so they ignore the

risks today.

Show the other restaurants

and Kathy Cox that you are willing to make the effort to protect yourself

and your family and make our community a safer, better place to live.

Kathie Cheney

Peachtree City