The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

tjiettfbune 35000 copies vol 3 no 51 a metro community n saturday december 19 1987 56 pages 25 cents province to snuff out markham butts by steve houston staff reporter markham officials took a big first step tuesday towards legis lating a smokefree municipality council unanimously voted to seek provincial legislation to ban smoking in the workplace and most public areas if passed in its present form the new regulation will extend the towns current bylaw to ban smoking at work in shopping malls bus shelters lobbies and hair facial and tanning salons but it could be subject to changes before becoming law in the town say officials the current bylaw passed in 1986 restricts smoking in banks grocery stores retail stores res taurants public waiting areas and elevators enabling legislation is needed from the province to provide the town with sufficient legal clout in passing such decisive nosmoking bylaws says town solicitor ray kallio this latest move which came a day after torontos sweeping no- smoking bylaw was the result of a monthslong crusade by two loc al women demanding stronger laws on the issue three speakers from various antismoking and medical groups addressed council tues day providing members with evi dence to illustrate the harmful effects of smoke inhalation much of the discussion centred on exposure to secondhand or environmental tobacco smoke ets and the effect of it on non- smokers the unanimous vote to seek enabling legislation from the pro vince followed the hourlong pre sentation evelyn johnston and donna bush the two who spearheaded the drive to bring in stronger no- smoking bylaws are hailing councils move this week its a very good beginning said johnston yesterday i am determined that i should be able to live my life without having to breathe smoke all the time kallio said hell model mar- khams proposed bylaw closely to torontos when the enabling leg islation is approved at queens park and markham mpp don cousens said thursday hell intro duce the proposal in the legisla ture early next year he said it could take up to a year before being approved board use of moves to curb tape recorders by paul pivato staff reporter tape recorders and tv camer as could be banned at york re gion public school board meetings if trustees approve a motion intro duced this week the proposed bylaw comes in the wake of a growing con troversy over whether tape recor ders should be allowed into the board chambers last week trustees voted to ad journ a stormy committee meet ing when vaughan trustee ted berger refused to shut off his tape recorder many of the trustees were out raged that berger was taping the session without first notifying fel low trustees or a delegation of teachers giving a presentation director of education bob cressman called the tape record ing incident a publicity stunt by berger while most trustees label led bergers actions a gross dis courtesy but berger argued that he has the legal right to record public meetings and vowed to keep his tapes running after the proposed bylaw was tabled at mondays board meeting berger told reporters he wasnt totally surprised by the boards move saying the tape recorder issue is a civil liberties matter ber ger asked are the trustees not willing to talk freely and be re corded a local resident attending the board meeting booed trustees when they voted to accept the mo tion which will be debated and voted on at the next session in january i dont like all this secrecy said ian agnew who came to the meeting after reading about the tape recording controversy in the newspaper the boards con ducting the publics business in a private manner but the director of education said the board has the right to pro hibit or restrict tape recording the proposed bylaw would give the board chairman the right to ban tape recorders and tv cameras at public meetings members of the public and media would first have to obtain the chairmans permission before using a recording device however the chairmans deci sion could be overruled by a majority vote of twothirds of the trustees the motion states that a record ing device inhibits the free ex pression of views valued by the democratic process sleepy songsters junior kindergarten stu dents at st patricks sepa rate school in markham put on a show for friends and re latives at the schools annual christinas concert on thurs day yeuhg john joe slike left looks like he missed his cue during a song while domenic grasso mark fol- kers and daniel goto work in tandem during the perform ance vi v sjoerd witteveeh i whats inside lips happy holidays from weekender staff directory comment p4 editors mail p5 real estate p23 to 25 kids page p36 entertainment p37 church page p40 to 42 sports p 43 to 45 classified p46 to 55