To the editor:

I was pleasantly surprised when I read in the Lawrence Journal-World that the new mayor of Lawrence was studying a smoking ban in Lawrence’s restaurants and businesses. I am the recipient of a single lung transplant and do not patronize businesses that allow smoking. I owe that much to the anonymous donor who 10 years ago this month gave me this new lung and a chance at a new life. I am a strong advocate of both organ donations and non-smoking businesses. Before my lung transplant, I was on oxygen therapy 24/7 for eight years. I realize every day how fortunate I am to have someone donate a lung. I thank God every day for that person and the fact he or she was not a smoker. I quit smoking 18 years ago, but for 20 years before that I smoked one to two packs of cigarettes a day. I know personally that smoking is both an addiction and a killer. I would like to see a day when no one smokes — in public or in private. I am risking my health whenever I have to walk through smoke to enter a building that has smoking within 25 to 50 feet of the entrance. I am grateful to the non-smoking establishments in Lawrence and will continue to spend my dollars there. If airlines, offices, universities, Salina, the state of California, New York City, and other small and large cities can ban smoking in recreation and business establishments, why can’t Lawrence?

Larry J. Schmitz,

Lawrence