Brooksville backs away from city employee tobacco restrictions

City council members backed away from a policy that would require all employees to eventually be tobacco free.

How strict the policy might extend, however, remains to be seen.

During a public meeting Monday, council members voiced their opposition to various parts of a proposed tobacco policy, citing concerns of how far it went into restricting employees' habits while outside of work.

While Vice Mayor Richard Lewis and councilman Joe Bernardini both opposed restricting tobacco use in employees' personal vehicles, councilmen Frankie Burnett and Joe Johnston III went further in opposing the policy - stating it went too far when addressing employees' tobacco use when off duty.

Under the proposed policy, current employees would have one year to quit using tobacco while new employees would have to sign an agreement that they don't use tobacco products and won't start after they're employed. Currently, new hires in the Hernando County Sheriff's Office have to sign a similar agreement.

Burnett, who admits he smokes, said it's not the place of government to dictate what an employee does once he or she is off the clock and leaves city property.

"If we do do it, it should be about having a tobacco-free workplace," Burnett said. "But what an employee does in their own home or cars? No, I don't agree with that."

However, all four councilmen did support other aspects of the policy, such as making city properties and vehicles tobacco free.

Mayor Lara Bradburn, who is a staunch supporter of creating a tobacco-free policy, said the purpose of the policy isn't to allow government to dictate what employees can do in their personal lives. Instead, she said the purpose is to promote healthy living, lessen health care costs for taxpayers and establish a provision that's been in effect in the private sector for many years.

"Decreasing health care costs for taxpayers is a plus, but the better, overall health of our employees is the biggest gain," Bradburn said. "I'll tell you, I don't like smoking and I don't like to be around smoking. I watched my mother whither away - and I can tell you she'd be upset with a policy like this."

However, City Planner Steven Gouldman, who smokes, criticized the proposed policy, saying the process to survey employees about the policy was misleading and the data isn't accurate.

He said most of the data presented was to create a tobacco-free workplace. However, hidden in the data he said it creates provisions that affect employees' personal lives

"The only way most people would even know about this is because it was in the newspaper," Gouldman said. "I oppose this policy, not just because I'm a smoker."

He added that a survey of employees is misleading - both the questions to employees and how staff used the results to verify their findings - and questioned what other recommendations have been made based on poor information put before council.

Bradburn agreed and said more data would be collected before the council reexamines the issue.

"I think we can agree that there are elements of this data that could be a bit better," Bradburn said. "I think our folks definitely have some things to work on."