A young medical student taking instruction at Lovelace Family Medicine is visiting town and city councils in an effort to get officials interested in banning smoking in public places. As to the debate: we say, “Spark it up!”

Banning smoking is a hot topic in South Carolina-and around the nation, lately-, with just this week the state's highest court handing down a ruling about a smoking ban on Sullivan's Island. Sullivan's Island banned smoking inside public places in 2006 and the case stems from a bar that sued after closing, the owners say due to losing smokers' business. The court upheld the city's ban, although it dismissed the idea of the hefty fine and jail time which the city had originally specified as punishment for violating the ban. The SC Supremes said that municipalities cannot criminalize something the state allows. But apparently it is OK to yank a business license over it-for repeat offenses that is.

The list of jurisdictions in South Carolina with bans on workplace smoking is not short, and will likely grow. Currently it consists of: Aiken County, Aiken, Beaufort County, Beaufort, Bluffton, Camden, Charleston, Clemson, Columbia, Greenville, Hilton Head Island, Lexington, Liberty, Mount Pleasant, North Augusta, Richland County, Surfside Beach, Sullivan's Island and Walterboro. Tyler Ellis would like to add Newberry, Prosperity, Little Mountain, Whitmire, and so on to that list. We say there is no reason to dismiss this idea out of hand, and at the very least, voters should get a chance to cast ballots on the issue.

Take into account that there are more ways than ever before for smokers to assuage their nicotine cravings without risking the health of those around them. Walk into pharmacies and on the same wall as the cartons of cigarettes and tubs of snuff are a bewildering array of “nicotine delivery systems.” Available in the marketplace of today are patches of varying levels of concentration and staying power, nicotine chewing gum with creative new “non-nicotine” flavors and even electronic cigarettes that deliver smokeless, non-flammable doses of nicotine to users. Banning smoking does not need to banish smokers.

However, putting smoking sections right inside the front doors of restaurants, or in every corner of a bar, does tend to limit the non-smokers willing to spend money and time in a place.

The common wisdom is that smoking bans will destroy businesses like bars. Melissa Magwood, manager of Poe's Tavern in Sullivan's Island told the Charleston Post and Courier that going smokeless “hasn't affected us one bit.” Magwood is increasingly in the majority opinion as business owners and their customers adapt to a smokeless environment. Bans in South Carolina usually just extend to the indoors with restaurants and bars setting up smoking sections on patios and sidewalks. And isn't that just common sense. South Carolina is, as a rule, a warm area, where is the harm in taking the smoking outside?

More power to Tyler Ellis, let's feed the fire of debate and take the question of smoking bans to the ballot in Newberry County. Let the public decide what sort of environment should reign in public places.