May 5, 2007 8:11 am US/Central
City: Smoking Ban Will Apply To Actors Onstage
Broadway In Chicago: Ruling Violates 1st Amendment
CHICAGO (STNG) ―
"Twelve Angry Men." "The Graduate." "Guys and Dolls." "Jersey Boys." "Chicago." "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?"
Imagine those Broadway classics -- or plays about Prohibition, organized crime or smoke-filled political rooms -- being performed in Chicago by actors who don't have cigarettes dangling from their lips or smoldering in their hands.
It could happen, now that aldermen have taken a stand that, a colleague warns, runs contrary to the First Amendment.
By a 4 to 2 vote, the City Council's Buildings Committee voted Friday not to exempt actors from Chicago's smoking ban -- not even when smoking is an "integral part of the theatrical performance."
For 16 months, actors have been defying the ban, prompting complaints from theatergoers, "strong words prior to performances" between producers and City Hall and veiled threats to stop the show.
To clear the air, downtown Ald. Burton F. Natarus (42nd) wanted his colleagues to pass an exemption. The answer was "no."
"We worked over two years trying to pass an ordinance here that prohibited people from smoking. They just passed a law 73 to 42" in the Illinois House that prohibits smoking statewide, said Health Committee Chairman Ed Smith (28th), who championed Chicago's smoking ban.
"We would be duplicitous if we ... say it's all right to allow people to smoke on the stage. ... It's an adversity to people who come to see those plays and the stagehands."
Ald. Ray Suarez (31st) agreed. "It would be hypocritical of me to vote for an ordinance that bans smoking in Chicago and now has passed statewide, then go out and say we're going to give an exemption to actors smoking on stage where the cigarettes are going to be in the air" that affects theatergoers.
Instead of exempting actors, Smith advised producers to modify the lines of the play to strike references to smoking and smoke-filled rooms.
Louis F. Raizin, president of Broadway in Chicago, said that would be "like telling an artist what color paint he should or shouldn't use."
Raizin warned, "Shows that are coming to Chicago will no longer come because you are modifying the art that was created. If it plays anywhere else in the country and it doesn't play here as it was originally written, it's going to have a detrimental effect on what we wind up seeing in the city."
Buildings Committee Chairman Bernard Stone (50th), who has dabbled in acting, added: "Because it's onstage, is it different than smoking in the movies? Let's censor everybody. This is 1984. ... Carrie Nation [who gave us Prohibition] wins again."
After the vote, Raizin said actors would continue to defy the Chicago smoking ban and, perhaps, try to get around it by using herbal cigarettes. Those are currently permitted "as props for performances," according to Kelvy Brown, legislative coordinator for the city's Department of Public Health.
(Source: Sun-Times News Group Wire © Chicago Sun-Times 2006. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
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