A July 19 public hearing in Alabaster will take on a historically touchy subject: banning smoking in public places throughout the community. Back in the day when Hollywood stars graced movie screens with cigarettes in hand, the very thought of impeding someone’s ability to smoke was unheard of. Thankfully, today is a different day and Alabaster City Council members are doing the right thing in considering a citywide smoking ban.

The City of Alabaster, along with several other Shelby County communities, has considered implementing a smoking ban over the last several years, but no citywide ban has come to fruition in Alabaster. Some communities, like Hoover, have implemented smoking bans with relatively little negative pushback from smokers either living or visiting that city, so it’s easy to imagine a similar response in Alabaster should the city council move forward with the ban.

Where or how smoking would be banned in the city are questions the city council, with public input, will hopefully work through in the coming weeks.

Most former smokers will tell you it’s extremely difficult to stop smoking.

But something much more difficult than kicking the habit of smoking is to attend the funeral of a loved one who died as a result of the deadly habit.

Anything the city council can do to help limit the number of those funerals should be applauded.

A few commonalities of the previous generations of men in my family are that they all began smoking at an early age, did so their entire lives and died much too young as a result of the habit.

I expect you too have similar stories you could tell about people important to you who died too soon because the simply could not stop smoking once they started.

The Alabaster City Council deserves our support and thanks for considering a smoking ban in the city.

The ban should be carefully considered and implemented in due course.