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Smoke Free Horry
Health, Conway, SC (843) 488-1329
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Address 1604 B Main Street Conway, SC 29526 Hours Monday 8:30 a.m. - 5 p.m. Tuesday 8:30 a.m. - 5 p.m. Wednesday 8:30 a.m. - 5 p.m. Thursday 8:30 a.m. - 5 p.m. Friday 8:30 a.m. - 5 p.m. Saturday closed Sunday closed Business Services secondhand smoke awareness, smoking cessation help, assisting business going smoke free
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Smoke Free Horry Initiative Mission
The mission of Smoke Free Horry is to reduce the harmful effects of tobacco use in Horry County, educate the community on the harmful effects of secondhand smoke, and to promote an environment in which all Horry County residents have the ability to breathe smoke free air.
Our goals are to:
• Protect citizens from secondhand smoke,
• Reduce tobacco use among adults and youth, and to
• Prevent kids from ever starting to use tobacco.
The Smoke Free Horry coalition is a grassroots effort including a broad range of organizations, agencies, parents, youth and other community members concerned with the negative consequences of secondhand smoke in our community.
Smoke Free Horry is a collaborative partnership between the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control, Shoreline Behavioral Health Services, and the South Carolina Tobacco Collaborative and is funded by a Communities Putting Prevention to Work grant awarded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Priority Focus Areas
• Educate our youth and the community about the dangers of tobacco use and secondhand smoke exposure.
• Assist community agencies, organizations, municipalities, and school districts develop and implement smoke free and tobacco free policies.
• Offer counseling and nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) to Horry County residents who enroll in S.C. Tobacco Quitline services, 1-800-QUIT-NOW.
Question Do the people want smoke free workplaces? Answer Smoke free workplaces are an idea whose time has come. Nearly half of all Americans and one-third of South Carolinians are now protected by comprehensive smoke free workplace laws.
There are currently 38 local smoke free workplace ordinances in South Carolina. This includes five counties and 33 cities and towns. The list includes Horry County’s very own Surfside Beach as well as other tourism centers such as Charleston, Hilton Head, Isle of Palms, Sullivan’s Island, Mount Pleasant, Beaufort, Beaufort County and Edisto Beach.
In fact, when you travel either in state or out of state, smoke free environments are now the norm. Today’s travelling public actually expects smoke free environments.
Smoke free workplaces are something the public wants and is what Horry County workers deserve. A few years ago, a statewide poll showed that 70% of S.C. voters favored a local law that would prohibit smoking in all indoor workplaces including offices, restaurants and bars.
83% of S.C. voters believe secondhand smoke is a health hazard.
In nearby Florence County, surveys have shown incredible support for smoke free workplaces, well above 80%.
The people want smoke free workplaces, and we believe everyone deserves to breathe smoke free air. Question How are you going to get smoke free public policies passed? Answer Our goal is to first educate Horry County residents, workers and visitors on the dangers of secondhand smoke. The Surgeon General has repeatedly said there is no safe level of exposure to secondhand smoke.
We are getting very enthusiastic feedback for the Smoke Free Horry campaign. The people want smoke free workplaces. They want to know why this hasn’t been done already.
The people are the change agents. Question What would you tell the smokers and the businesses who believe smokers are important to their business? Answer The results of all credible peer-reviewed studies show that smoke free policies and regulations do not have a negative impact on business revenues.
Further, the 38 smoke free ordinances in South Carolina only prohibit smoking INSIDE workplaces. They do not “outlaw” smoking but instead require smoking outside.
From a tourism standpoint, the majority of Grand Strand visitors live in places that also have smoke free laws, including our primary feeder markets of North Carolina, New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio.
Establishing smoke free workplaces is the simplest and most cost effective way to improve worker and business health (Surgeon General, 2006), with no negative impact on revenue. Question What cities and towns are most important to this effort? Answer All Horry County residents, workers and visitors deserve to breathe smoke free air. We are working on a county wide public education campaign on the dangers of secondhand smoke.
Our ultimate goal is to see that all workers in Horry are protected from secondhand smoke exposure.
We believe citizens and visitors to all our municipalities deserve to breathe smoke free air. Question Is there opposition to a Smoke Free Horry County? Answer This is about public and worker health. The overwhelming majority of people want smoke free workplaces. Question Why can’t we just let businesses decide if they want to allow smoking or not? Answer This is a worker health issue. While customers can pick and choose places they patronize, employees don’t have that luxury.
All people, whether they work in office buildings or bars and restaurants, deserve to breathe smoke free air while at work. The Surgeon General has said that, “Secondhand smoke is not a mere annoyance. It is a serious health hazard that can lead to disease and premature death in children and nonsmoking adults.” In the difficult economic times we live in, people don’t always have a choice when finding a job.
Restaurant and bar employees deserve a smoke free workplace just as much as people who work in offices, retail stores and other settings and should not be forced to quit their jobs to protect themselves from secondhand smoke. Question Why not just wait for the state legislature to pass a statewide law? Answer We do not believe a comprehensive statewide smoke free workplace law will pass at the state level soon enough to project workers who are currently at risk. South Carolina’s real achievement on the smoke free issue has been at the local level, where elected officials are acting to protect their constituents against the dangers of secondhand smoke.
It took the state legislature more than 10 years to enact meaningful tobacco control legislation that raised South Carolina’s cigarette tax out of last place in the nation, despite overwhelming support from the public.
South Carolina is, however, moving in the right direction. Since the Surgeon General’s landmark 2006 finding that there is no safe level of secondhand smoke exposure, five counties and 33 municipalities have adopted smoke free workplace ordinances. In fact, our state was recently recognized as the national leader in passing comprehensive smoke free local laws when it was named the 2008 and 2009 winner of the Americans for Nonsmokers’ Rights Smoke Free Air Challenge Award. Question How will ordinances be executed and administered? Are police going to be spending their time with this? Answer Smoke free ordinances are largely self-enforcing. All businesses will post “no smoking” signs to the entrance of their buildings. People respect the law. Question How will the distance requirements noted in ordinances be known and enforced? Why are we talking about no smoking outside, too? Answer Distances are set to keep smoke from blowing back into buildings where people are working – people will be able to assess where they should not be standing while smoking if they are unsure of the exact distance from doorways.
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