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Following is a posting from the Wisconsin Restaurant Association web site. WRA now publicly discusses the fact that they accept money from Philip Morris, a company whose interests are in increasing smoking in restaurants even to the detriment of staff. WISH comments in Red.

Many of our Wisconsin Restaurant Association members recently received a very negative mailing from the Wisconsin Initiative on Smoking and Health (WISH) attacking WRA for its stand against smoking bans. WISH assailed WRA's ethics, business sense and responsiveness to members. To set the record straight, WRA wants to respond:

• Yes, Philip Morris is a dues-paying supplier partner member of WRA. Philip Morris, besides being a cigarette manufacturer, is a large conglomerate of companies including Miller Beer and Kraft Foods. Miller and Kraft, like dozens of other companies with interest in the restaurant industry, also contribute additional money to WRA and WRA Education Foundation programs. When WRA and Philip Morris have worked together on fighting local restaurant smoking bans it is because on this one issue, both organizations have an interest in the outcome, not because of financial contributions. WRA does not work on any smoking related issue not directly related to restaurants.

Well, some people are choosey as to who they take money from. 

• WISH contends that smoking bans do not hurt, and even benefit, restaurants. Based on numerous conversations with restaurateurs who have lost considerable income because of smoking bans, WRA disagrees. While the effect of a smoking ordinance will vary for every restaurant, WRA hopes to defend the businesses that are most vulnerable. Remember, WISH's goal is to ban smoking; WRA's is to protect restaurants.

Based on all studies of taxes paid by restaurants, revenues have not decreased in communities with ordinances, and in some cases have increased. What can be clearer? Rhetoric from WRA and Philip Morris executives? WRA needs to get on the same page as its members and the communities they serve.

• Claiming most restaurant owners support smoking ban ordinances, WISH says WRA is out of touch with its members. On the contrary, WRA is its members. Forty elected directors, representing every area of the state and every segment of the industry, have voted repeatedly to oppose local smoking bans. If member opinion were to truly change on this issue - or any other - WRA would change with it. 

WISH has been told by the WRA Executive Director that 30% of it's board members (perhaps the smokers) opposes smoke free ordinances, and that if WRA were to support smoke free ordinances they could lose 30% of their members to a maverick association, just as happened in California. 

But we know what happened in California: The CRA cut its financial ties with the tobacco industry and supported a 100% state wide law. The maverick association (which was funded by Philip Morris) closed its doors and the members returned to the fold.

The real question is, why do the 40 WRA directors not vote consistent with its member's desires, of which (by WRA's own accounts) the majority support a state wide law?  Isn't that the message WRA was awaiting to change its position?

Our members may ask why WISH has spent such considerable time and money singling out our organization for attack. We believe it's because WRA and its members are so effective. Restaurateurs in numerous communities, with WRA support, have defeated proposal after proposal to ban restaurant smoking. On this issue and others, WRA will continue fighting to keep business decisions in the hands of business owners.

Not true. We don't have money on our side, just the public.

WISH "attacks" the WRA because (a) its position is inconsistent with the majority of its members, (b) is not in the best interest of those members and their employee's health, and (c) is not in the best interest of the children visiting smoky restaurants.

It IS, however, in the best interest of Philip Morris, because more cigarettes are smoked at the dinner table. And that's why Philip Morris sends cash to all but three state restaurant associations*. They like that organizations like the WRA are continuing to fight their battle.

As well, WRA likes to tout its surveys of members. Click here to see how they worded one a while back. You be the judge. Did they stack the deck?

* Those is smoke free states.