Smoking Ban

To the Editors of The Crimson:

This letter is written by the concerned participants of the meeting described in "Holyoke Smokers Miffed, Protest Cambridge Ban" (March 19, 1987). We who attended this meeting graciously asked The Crimson to meet with us after our initial meeting with Jim Deziedk so that we could let it know what was being done about our complaints and stress over the smoking ban. This we did in all honesty so that even the people who didn't come would at the very least know that we were still looking out for their stresses as well as our own on this issue.

What we got was a "lie" which said that we were protesing the smoking ordinance which is not true, what we were and are still doing is letting out some of the stresses and concerns which the smoking ban has caused smokers. And believe it or not Harvard didn't address this side of the ban until and individual wrote to ask why it had not. Then and only then did this issue get some attention within Holyoke Center.

What we as smoking employees are protesting is the insensitive way in which The Crimson portrayed us. It was not shown that these interviews were conducted singularly with two distinctly individual groups. The Crimson made it seem as if we were all together in one room and the reporter in one room and the reporter was asking one group what had happened at the meeting and then asking the other group why it didn't go to the meeting. Since this was not so, we are asking that The Crimson make it clear that these interviews were done separately.

Since we find that The Crimson and its staff are both biased and one-sided, we have decided that as of the date that this letter is received we no longer want to talk with The Crimson reporters about our causes or anything else. Elisa Cantone   Irene Kelley   Mary McCarthy