Airspace Action on Smoking and Health has dissolved itself as an organization registered under the BC Societies Act.
Why? Because Airspace has accomplished most of its objectives. If you look back to the time of the founding of Airspace in the late 1970’s,
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We published the Breather’s Dining Guide for the entire Province of B.C. It was originally a very short list, and at that time, many restaurants, and only one pub, even had non-smoking sections.
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There were few restrictions on smoking in workplaces.
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There were few restrictions on smoking in public places such as shopping malls.
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Laws against the sale of cigarettes to children were rarely enforced. Many schools had smoking areas.
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Cigarettes were heavily advertised via sponsorships of motor races, film festivals, music festivals, and fashion shows. Much of the British Columbia media was on board for these events.
You probably have some memories of the many great things that Airspace did, and we invite you to share them with us.
Things such as Airspace's kiddie stings on cigarette vendors, former Airspace President Heather Mackenzie's numerous lawsuits against the tobacco industry, Airspace's booths at trade shows, our Bedfellows award, and our demonstrations against industry-funded events such as the Benson & Hedges Fireworks, Player's Indy Racing, the Matinee Fashion Show and the du Maurier Jazz Festival.
Or Airspace's fights on issues too numerous to mention such as advertising, vaping, 2nd-hand marijuana smoke, plain-packaging, smoking in multi-unit dwellings, mail-order cigarettes, and the BC College of Pharmacists defense of selling cigarettes in pharmacies.
Our annual Christmas caroling in front of the Imperial Tobacco office on Grandview in Vancouver was an embarrassment to the tobacco industry. They later closed that office and moved their operations to Calgary.
We shed light on the tobacco industry’s involvement in cigarette smuggling, and the use of BC health care facilities for cigarette product testing.
The Grim Reaper was a constant thorn in the side to the tobacco industry and their friends, and in his alter ego as Airspace president Errol Povah, he walked across Canada in 2010 to raise money for his Journey for a Tobacco-Free World initiative and raised hell at tobacco-industry conferences from Thailand to Malaysia.
We published the hard-hitting Breathers’ Digest and distributed it to nearly one hundred public libraries in BC, and have provided numerous resources to hundreds of others in the fight against the industry.
However, this web site and our Facebook page will be continued indefinitely.
Airspace wishes to express a heartfelt thanks to all those who have supported us over the years, and hope that our efforts, with your support, have led to better lives for all of us in this province.
From all of us at Airspace, thank you again.