Tara Kearsey
Northern News Services

Inuvik (Jan 24/03) - A petition to ban smoking in all public places open to minors is circulating around Inuvik this week.

To coincide with National Non-smoking Week, Alfred Moses, town councillor and community health representative, is on a mission to gain support for a smoking ban in all public buildings open to those under the age of 18.

"I want to make this petition go through without any glitches or anything to hold it back to further the process of getting a bylaw passed," said Moses.

Moses is following the footsteps of Yellowknife, Iqaluit, Fort Smith and Hay River councils, which are also pushing for smoke-free public buildings.

"It's something that I've been thinking about for a year ... and I thought this would be a great time to try to get a petition filled with names of people who support this," he said.

Last year on Weedless Wednesday, Moses succeeded in convincing several local restaurant owners to ban smoking for the day.

"Some of them did and some of them didn't. A few said they lost some money. But if the food is that good then they're still going to get people coming into their restaurant and they will start getting more customers that didn't want to go in there because of the smoke," said Moses.

He also visited local schools this week to educate kids about the harmful effects of smoking. At Sir Alexander Mackenzie school he organized a scavenger hunt for the kids and held a pizza party for the winners yesterday afternoon. Moses hopes a non-smoking bylaw will be a sure sign for younger generations that smoking is no longer the 'in' thing to do.