Editor:

I love living in Casper and feel that Wyomingites have such a blessing of living in wide open spaces and clean air.

One thing that does bug me about our town is the number of restaurants that still have both smoking and nonsmoking areas. Those of us that are sensitive to smoke cannot enjoy a meal when we are choking on other's smoke. Even though we are in the nonsmoking area, it feels as though those smoking are at the table next to us. I have eaten in two such facilities in the past few weeks and have decided not to go back to these restaurants. I have also stopped shopping at a grocery store where employees are allowed to smoke by the front entrance and shoppers must breathe that smoke in order to get into the facility.

I don't care if people want to smoke, however, in working for the American Cancer Society, I know the statistics that show that tobacco use is one of the things that we as Americans have control of and can avoid in order to avoid cancer. That is not to say that if we don't smoke, use tobacco products or breathe other's smoke, that we may never get cancer, but it does decrease our chances of having to deal with a cancer diagnosis in our lifetime. Other things such an active lifestyle, covering ourselves from the sun, and eating healthy also will help us avoid the "C" diagnosis.

I encourage our restaurants in Natrona County to go smokefree and grocery stores to ask employees not to smoke near store entrances. Let's pass a nonsmoking ordinance to make Natrona County Smokefree, and I would also like to see our Legislature pass a statewide ordinance, as your constituents in Wyoming who are 80 percent nonsmokers are asking you to do.

Wyoming is cool without tobacco products and the Marlboro man died of lung cancer in his 50s!

KAREN STILLWELL, Casper

Quality of Life Manager,

American Cancer Society