The angry telephone calls lasting 45 minutes into the night have stopped. So have the frontal attacks on his character. Ditto for the anonymous posters depicting him as Adolf Hitler.
A little more than one year ago, Councilman Johnny Jennings led a charge to ban smoking inside public places in Greenwood. The months following the City Council’s unanimous decision to adopt the ordinance saw handfuls of thorns tossed Jennings’ way.
“People did, they beat me up pretty good about it,” he said Friday.
But today, looking back through 12 smoke-free months, the Ward 1 councilman says the “Thank yous” and handshakes he’s received outweigh the criticisms in both quantity and worth.
“The air’s cleared, if you will, and more and more people walk up to me and thank me,” Jennings said. “I really believe this is going to end up being one of the better things I did to make my community a better place. And that’s my job as an elected official, to improve my community.”
The ordinance, which took effect Aug. 16, 2007, bans indoor smoking in Greenwood bars, restaurants and other public places. Jennings pushed for the ban, he said, because of public concern with second-hand smoke and the fact that other Mississippi cities – Hattiesburg, Oxford, Tupelo – had made similar moves.
“We’re not trying to stop people from smoking,” he said. “They can have a nine-pack-a-day habit if they want. We just want people to respect the health of others. I think it’s been a good thing.”
Others disagree. Violently.
To this day, Greenwood resident Estell Carpenter won’t speak to Jennings. Sitting with friends at a bar Friday evening – sharing drink, conversation and not a single cigarette – Carpenter even refused to say his name. She referred to him simply as “Hitler.”
“Instead of making everyone abide by a rule, they should have put it to a vote for the people,” said Carpenter, 67. “The idea that the government can tell a business what patrons can do inside their doors is absurd.”
Carpenter admitted she is a smoker. Coley Sanders, a local businessman, is not. Still, he described the ban on indoor smoking as “crazy.”
“I think it’s a crime for them to make it legal to sale them, and make people pay state taxes on them, and then not let people smoke them where they want to,” Sanders, 65, said. “No, it’s not right.”
Josh Dunn, a local bartender, thinks the ordinance should have been catered to certain businesses.
“I actually agree with it in a family restaurant or atmosphere,” Dunn, a smoker, said. “But in a bar, that’s a different thing.”
Jennings, whose father was a smoker, said he understands why smokers react so strongly to the ordinance.
“(My father) used every excuse in the world to try and justify his habit,” he said. “You just can’t argue with an addict.”
While private residents might agree or disagree with the ordinance, local businesses “fell right in line” with the law, according to Greenwood Police Chief Henry Purnell.
“As of today, we have not received a single phone call or complaint,” Purnell said Friday. “But if you had to pay a $500 fine for somebody smoking inside your place of business, you’d be enforcing the rule also.”
Jennings said if the ordinance simply saves one person’s life, he will see it as a success.
“No one will ever convince me that this thing hasn’t been a good thing for our town.”
