Conway, S.C. Puts Brakes On Smoking Ban Vote

Despite passing by a 4-2 vote on its first reading earlier this month, the Conway City Council brought the progress of a new smoking ban to a halt Tuesday night after one council member changed her vote.

Councilwoman Jean Timbes was the one who put the brakes on the vote, saying that while she wanted to vote for a ban of some sort, she felt that amendments needed to be made first, according to MyrtleBeachOnline.com. While she doesn’t want to tell business owners that they can’t allow smoking in their business, she also wants to add language that would ban smoking on city-owned property, including parks, as well as on city sidewalks.

With Timbes going after the core of the ban–protecting workers from secondhand smoke–the ban now faces an uncertain future, since it would likely need to be fully rewritten. The council has announced that they will be holding a workshop in the near future with the goal of reworking the ban or scrapping the plan all together.

Conway is home to approximately 19,300 residents and is located about 100 miles northeast of Charleston and 15 miles northwest of Myrtle Beach.