Two eastern Iowa cities work on no-smoking ordinances

Two Iowa towns are working on writing up matching no-smoking laws. Iowa City’s barely five miles from Coralville, and Coralville mayor Jim Fausett says the two councils hold some of their meetings jointly to work on issues they share. The two councils are working today on no-smoking ordinances for restaurants and other public places, the kind other cities have passed. Mayor Fausett says the councils hold their next joint meeting Wednesday to come up with wording for matching no-smoke ordinances.Coralville Mayor Jim Fausett says the city councils of his town and Iowa City will meet September fifth to try crafting a joint ordinance on smoking in public places.Fausett points out that people from one town frequently go to restaurants in the other. Impetus for the ordinance also came from a local anti-smoking citizens action group. They pushed both councils to come up with a no-smoking ordinance for restaurants, and the officials decided to make it all public places. There aren’t many details beyond that, but both Iowa City and Coralville council members will bring proposals to their joint meeting on the fifth. Fausett says the two towns don’t pass matching ordinances ALL the time, and as an example he cites the local alcohol rules.He says Coralville doesn’t have the student bars Iowa City does, nor the problems, so they didn’t pass the same law that time.