Sean Penn Bits & Pieces
Post
14/09/06, Jeff Gray, Health minister tells Penn to butt out, (Source).
15/09/06, Jeff Gray, Penn's $600 smoke, (Source).
07/10/06, Rex Murphy, Hypocrisy, thy name is Ontario, (Not On-Line).
14/09/06, Jeff Gray, Health minister tells Penn to butt out, (Back).
Toronto International Film Festival 2006, with a report from James Adams.
Call it the butt that launched a thousand gripes -- a cigarette perched between the fingers of Hollywood star Sean Penn at the Toronto International Film Festival, its smoke trail twisting upward, was splashed across newspaper pages and has now ignited a controversy of its own.
Penn was smoking at a press conference held at the downtown Sutton Place Hotel, despite the Smoke-Free Ontario Act, which bans lighting up in workplaces and all enclosed spaces open to the public. The picture prompted questions for Ontario's Health Promotion Minister, Jim Watson, as to whether celebrities in town for the film festival were flouting the law, which came into effect on May 31.
"My belief is that no one is above the law, whether you are a Hollywood star or a movie mogul," Watson said yesterday in an interview, urging Toronto public-health officials and film-festival organizers to keep movie stars from puffing with impunity.
David McKeown, Toronto's medical officer of health, said his officials are conducting an investigation of Penn's alleged transgression and that a public-health inspector has contacted the hotel. Individuals face a fine of $305 for this kind of offence, while businesses face a $365 fine.
"I am concerned about public figures, people in the public eye, and what kind of role model or example they set for others," McKeown said.
Meanwhile, a prominent anti-smoking activist suggested that Penn's decision to light up at a press conference should be treated no differently than if the famously pugnacious actor had thrown a punch.
Garfield Mahood, executive director of the Non-Smokers' Rights Association, said that if no one pursues Penn for lighting up, "it trivializes the law."
"It would be over the top to make comparisons, but if basketball stars commit assault outside a bar, law-enforcement officials do not hesitate to lay charges," Mahood said in an interview. "Given that second-hand smoke is a toxic substance . . . my reaction is, it warrants a charge."
He added that Penn has to know about the Smoke Free Movies campaign, which has taken out ads in the New York Times to persuade Hollywood to reduce the amount of smoking in films.
Penn and other celebrities "would have to be fully aware that when they light up at a news conference, it's almost thumbing their starry noses at public health and what's going on in society," Mahood said.
Christopher Ashby, marketing director for the Sutton Place Hotel, said it is "always our objective" to enforce the province's no-smoking law. But hotel staff are not always present during film-festival or other events, he said.
Ashby would not confirm whether public health officials had contacted the hotel.
Film-festival spokesman Denny Alexander said organizers "make every effort possible" to let their guests know where they can and cannot smoke. And he said press conference moderator Henri Béhar would be reminding participants of the rules at future events: "We apologize that our moderator did not address the issue during the press conference."
It certainly isn't just Penn who has smoked at the film festival. Oscar-winner Tim Robbins, giving an interview at the Park Hyatt, asked an interviewer whether he minded if he smoked before lighting up.
And on Sunday, American publicists in town to promote a documentary at the festival did not hesitate to light up in a restaurant in the posh Yorkville neighbourhood.
15/09/06, Jeff Gray, Penn's $600 smoke, (Back).
Hotel faces two fines for allowing Hollywood actor to light up indoors.
TORONTO -- The downtown Toronto hotel that allowed Hollywood actor Sean Penn to light up a cigarette, igniting a controversy over the province's no-smoking law, is facing more than $600 in fines for the incident.
But the once famously pugilistic movie star won't be facing any punishment -- unless you count the letter that Toronto's medical officer of health, David McKeown, plans to write.
"I'm going to write to Sean Penn to make sure he's aware of our requirements here in Ontario," Dr. McKeown said yesterday. He also said he plans to write to Toronto International Film Festival organizers to ensure visiting Hollywood types follow the letter of the law.
Dr. McKeown said his letter to Mr. Penn, which he said would not be made public, would make it clear that the actor is welcome at next year's festival: "I hope that by then he's kicked the habit."
On Wednesday, an image of Mr. Penn smoking at a film festival news conference inside the Sutton Place Hotel was splashed across newspapers -- the same day Ontario's Health Promotion Minister, Jim Watson, held a news conference touting his government's victories in the fight against smoking.
Reporters asked Mr. Watson whether celebrities in Toronto for the festival, and lighting up where they pleased, were getting a free ride. He urged public health officials to investigate anyone breaking the law.
Dr. McKeown said it is normal procedure for public health investigators enforcing the Smoke-Free Ontario Act to focus first on the business where the smoking took place, to see whether proper efforts were made to discourage it.
Only if no fault was found there would charges be pursued against an individual smoker, he said.
He confirmed that the Sutton Place Hotel would receive two tickets under the anti-smoking law: a $240 ticket for failing to post the required no-smoking signs, and a $365 ticket for failing to try to stop Mr. Penn from puffing away.
Ontario's strict anti-smoking rules, which came into effect May 31, forbid lighting up in workplaces and any enclosed space open to the public.
15/09/06, David Stein, Plight of Sean's butt, (Back).
Trust nitpicking, self-righteous little Upper Canadian puritans to make a petty fuss over a movie star committing a minor health infraction (Health Minister Tells Penn To Butt Out -- Review, Sept. 14). Torontonians should get down on their knees and praise their Almighty for giving a country with such a paltry film industry an attention-grabbing festival to celebrate the cinematic achievements of the real world.
07/10/06, Rex Murphy, Hypocrisy, thy name is Ontario, (Back).
Which city is more scrupulous in enforcing its pollution bylaws, Glasgow or Toronto?
No, this is not a thought experiment. In Toronto, during the manically hyped International Film Festival, Iraq reporter and some-time actor Sean Penn lit up a cigarette during a press conference at the Sutton Place Hotel.
There are bylaws in Toronto about just this sort of thing, and they carry heavy penalties. I've seen postings in elevators warning of $5,000 fines. It's enough to make you really flick your Bic.
There are bylaws in Glasgow too. I haven't had a chance to peruse that city's elevator literature, but I'd wager it features equally big fines in similarly small print.
In Glasgow, it was Keith Richards who lit up in a public place.
Perhaps, because it is Keith Richards we're talking about, I should be more explicit: He lit and smoked a cigarette. Whether Keith was, himself, lit up, is irrelevant. He wasn't at a news conference, nor, it might be helpful to add, was he up a palm tree. He smoked, on stage, during a Stones concert.
Here in Toronto the result was interesting. Sean Penn escaped any penalty. But the Sutton Place Hotel, the venue of the press conference, got hit with a $605 fine.
This doesn't seem fair. The hotel wasn't smoking. But evidently the hotel's staff had neglected to convey personally to the intrepid Mr. Penn the many prohibitions of the Smoke-Free Ontario Act.
The Glaswegian authorities were more merciful. Neither the company that operated the stage, nor the Great Inhaler himself, Mr. Richards, were fined. In Glasgow, they made a judgment of Solomonic finesse: A "stage" was not an "enclosed public space" in the meaning of the bylaws. Scots are nothing if not subtle.
It is useful to add that Mr. Penn's defiant fumigations caught the attention of no less a marplot than the Ontario Health Promotion Minister himself, Mr. Jim Watson, who allowed that Mr. Penn was a "great actor" but notwithstanding the comforts his great art has brought the world -- I'm paraphrasing here -- he was not above the law, and that "he could be charged and he should be charged." He hasn't been and won't be.
Film-festival officials grovelled in perfectly toneless and abject prose: "The festival and our hotel partners make every effort possible to ensure that our guests are aware of and respect Ontario's Smoke-Free Act. We apologize that our moderator did not address the issue during the press conference." I hope none of the PR people are writing scripts.
So Toronto takes its bylaws very seriously. And so does the Ontario government. When a minister scolds a wide-screen demigod, you know it's serious. The environment is a big issue in this province, as I hope this comparative study illustrates. Those Scots may be slackers, but Ontario is the dour jurisdiction when it comes to its air.
Just as it's big on global warming. Or so I thought. This is a province in love with blue boxes and a house of great crusaders against the tobacco menace -- which an authority no less than Al Gore has recently linked to the global warming phenomenon itself. Except when it comes to areas larger than a pop star's studied show of trivial rebellion, or something a little more drastic than parking the liquor empties in the right-coloured bin.
Consider the statement this week of Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty.
Rona Ambrose, the federal Environment Minister, has been talking of imposing fuel-emission standards on automobile manufacturers. Here's Mr. McGuinty: "The one thing we will not abide is any effort on the part of the national government to unduly impose greenhouse-gas emission reductions on the province of Ontario at the expense of the auto sector."
This is the same Premier who recently welcomed the news that government-subsidized GM plants would soon be the home for the manufacture of the new "muscle car" -- the gas-guzzling Camaro.
Fine a hotel for one star-lit cigarette, but welcome the manufacture of thousands of environmentally retrograde muscle cars. And promise not to "abide" any effort to "unduly impose greenhouse-gas reductions."
This is a parable of the entire global-warming debate. Those who accept the science of the climate-change projections, who profess to be most anxious over the "greatest crisis" of our times, will say every right word, and pursue the most trivial acts of symbolic environmentalism. But when it comes to action that has any real cost -- political or personal -- they are as hard-line an opponent to any change in the status quo as the most relentless climate skeptic.
It really is time for those who say they accept the crisis represented by climate change to live up to their professions.
The skeptics can always retire to Glasgow. And contemplate the Scottish understanding of an enclosed space.
(Back)
15/09/06, Jeff Gray, Penn's $600 smoke, (Source).
07/10/06, Rex Murphy, Hypocrisy, thy name is Ontario, (Not On-Line).
14/09/06, Jeff Gray, Health minister tells Penn to butt out, (Back).
Toronto International Film Festival 2006, with a report from James Adams.
Call it the butt that launched a thousand gripes -- a cigarette perched between the fingers of Hollywood star Sean Penn at the Toronto International Film Festival, its smoke trail twisting upward, was splashed across newspaper pages and has now ignited a controversy of its own.
Penn was smoking at a press conference held at the downtown Sutton Place Hotel, despite the Smoke-Free Ontario Act, which bans lighting up in workplaces and all enclosed spaces open to the public. The picture prompted questions for Ontario's Health Promotion Minister, Jim Watson, as to whether celebrities in town for the film festival were flouting the law, which came into effect on May 31.
"My belief is that no one is above the law, whether you are a Hollywood star or a movie mogul," Watson said yesterday in an interview, urging Toronto public-health officials and film-festival organizers to keep movie stars from puffing with impunity.
David McKeown, Toronto's medical officer of health, said his officials are conducting an investigation of Penn's alleged transgression and that a public-health inspector has contacted the hotel. Individuals face a fine of $305 for this kind of offence, while businesses face a $365 fine.
"I am concerned about public figures, people in the public eye, and what kind of role model or example they set for others," McKeown said.
Meanwhile, a prominent anti-smoking activist suggested that Penn's decision to light up at a press conference should be treated no differently than if the famously pugnacious actor had thrown a punch.
Garfield Mahood, executive director of the Non-Smokers' Rights Association, said that if no one pursues Penn for lighting up, "it trivializes the law."
"It would be over the top to make comparisons, but if basketball stars commit assault outside a bar, law-enforcement officials do not hesitate to lay charges," Mahood said in an interview. "Given that second-hand smoke is a toxic substance . . . my reaction is, it warrants a charge."
He added that Penn has to know about the Smoke Free Movies campaign, which has taken out ads in the New York Times to persuade Hollywood to reduce the amount of smoking in films.
Penn and other celebrities "would have to be fully aware that when they light up at a news conference, it's almost thumbing their starry noses at public health and what's going on in society," Mahood said.
Christopher Ashby, marketing director for the Sutton Place Hotel, said it is "always our objective" to enforce the province's no-smoking law. But hotel staff are not always present during film-festival or other events, he said.
Ashby would not confirm whether public health officials had contacted the hotel.
Film-festival spokesman Denny Alexander said organizers "make every effort possible" to let their guests know where they can and cannot smoke. And he said press conference moderator Henri Béhar would be reminding participants of the rules at future events: "We apologize that our moderator did not address the issue during the press conference."
It certainly isn't just Penn who has smoked at the film festival. Oscar-winner Tim Robbins, giving an interview at the Park Hyatt, asked an interviewer whether he minded if he smoked before lighting up.
And on Sunday, American publicists in town to promote a documentary at the festival did not hesitate to light up in a restaurant in the posh Yorkville neighbourhood.
15/09/06, Jeff Gray, Penn's $600 smoke, (Back).
Hotel faces two fines for allowing Hollywood actor to light up indoors.
TORONTO -- The downtown Toronto hotel that allowed Hollywood actor Sean Penn to light up a cigarette, igniting a controversy over the province's no-smoking law, is facing more than $600 in fines for the incident.
But the once famously pugilistic movie star won't be facing any punishment -- unless you count the letter that Toronto's medical officer of health, David McKeown, plans to write.
"I'm going to write to Sean Penn to make sure he's aware of our requirements here in Ontario," Dr. McKeown said yesterday. He also said he plans to write to Toronto International Film Festival organizers to ensure visiting Hollywood types follow the letter of the law.
Dr. McKeown said his letter to Mr. Penn, which he said would not be made public, would make it clear that the actor is welcome at next year's festival: "I hope that by then he's kicked the habit."
On Wednesday, an image of Mr. Penn smoking at a film festival news conference inside the Sutton Place Hotel was splashed across newspapers -- the same day Ontario's Health Promotion Minister, Jim Watson, held a news conference touting his government's victories in the fight against smoking.
Reporters asked Mr. Watson whether celebrities in Toronto for the festival, and lighting up where they pleased, were getting a free ride. He urged public health officials to investigate anyone breaking the law.
Dr. McKeown said it is normal procedure for public health investigators enforcing the Smoke-Free Ontario Act to focus first on the business where the smoking took place, to see whether proper efforts were made to discourage it.
Only if no fault was found there would charges be pursued against an individual smoker, he said.
He confirmed that the Sutton Place Hotel would receive two tickets under the anti-smoking law: a $240 ticket for failing to post the required no-smoking signs, and a $365 ticket for failing to try to stop Mr. Penn from puffing away.
Ontario's strict anti-smoking rules, which came into effect May 31, forbid lighting up in workplaces and any enclosed space open to the public.
15/09/06, David Stein, Plight of Sean's butt, (Back).
Trust nitpicking, self-righteous little Upper Canadian puritans to make a petty fuss over a movie star committing a minor health infraction (Health Minister Tells Penn To Butt Out -- Review, Sept. 14). Torontonians should get down on their knees and praise their Almighty for giving a country with such a paltry film industry an attention-grabbing festival to celebrate the cinematic achievements of the real world.
07/10/06, Rex Murphy, Hypocrisy, thy name is Ontario, (Back).
Which city is more scrupulous in enforcing its pollution bylaws, Glasgow or Toronto?
No, this is not a thought experiment. In Toronto, during the manically hyped International Film Festival, Iraq reporter and some-time actor Sean Penn lit up a cigarette during a press conference at the Sutton Place Hotel.
There are bylaws in Toronto about just this sort of thing, and they carry heavy penalties. I've seen postings in elevators warning of $5,000 fines. It's enough to make you really flick your Bic.
There are bylaws in Glasgow too. I haven't had a chance to peruse that city's elevator literature, but I'd wager it features equally big fines in similarly small print.
In Glasgow, it was Keith Richards who lit up in a public place.
Perhaps, because it is Keith Richards we're talking about, I should be more explicit: He lit and smoked a cigarette. Whether Keith was, himself, lit up, is irrelevant. He wasn't at a news conference, nor, it might be helpful to add, was he up a palm tree. He smoked, on stage, during a Stones concert.
Here in Toronto the result was interesting. Sean Penn escaped any penalty. But the Sutton Place Hotel, the venue of the press conference, got hit with a $605 fine.
This doesn't seem fair. The hotel wasn't smoking. But evidently the hotel's staff had neglected to convey personally to the intrepid Mr. Penn the many prohibitions of the Smoke-Free Ontario Act.
The Glaswegian authorities were more merciful. Neither the company that operated the stage, nor the Great Inhaler himself, Mr. Richards, were fined. In Glasgow, they made a judgment of Solomonic finesse: A "stage" was not an "enclosed public space" in the meaning of the bylaws. Scots are nothing if not subtle.
It is useful to add that Mr. Penn's defiant fumigations caught the attention of no less a marplot than the Ontario Health Promotion Minister himself, Mr. Jim Watson, who allowed that Mr. Penn was a "great actor" but notwithstanding the comforts his great art has brought the world -- I'm paraphrasing here -- he was not above the law, and that "he could be charged and he should be charged." He hasn't been and won't be.
Film-festival officials grovelled in perfectly toneless and abject prose: "The festival and our hotel partners make every effort possible to ensure that our guests are aware of and respect Ontario's Smoke-Free Act. We apologize that our moderator did not address the issue during the press conference." I hope none of the PR people are writing scripts.
So Toronto takes its bylaws very seriously. And so does the Ontario government. When a minister scolds a wide-screen demigod, you know it's serious. The environment is a big issue in this province, as I hope this comparative study illustrates. Those Scots may be slackers, but Ontario is the dour jurisdiction when it comes to its air.
Just as it's big on global warming. Or so I thought. This is a province in love with blue boxes and a house of great crusaders against the tobacco menace -- which an authority no less than Al Gore has recently linked to the global warming phenomenon itself. Except when it comes to areas larger than a pop star's studied show of trivial rebellion, or something a little more drastic than parking the liquor empties in the right-coloured bin.
Consider the statement this week of Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty.
Rona Ambrose, the federal Environment Minister, has been talking of imposing fuel-emission standards on automobile manufacturers. Here's Mr. McGuinty: "The one thing we will not abide is any effort on the part of the national government to unduly impose greenhouse-gas emission reductions on the province of Ontario at the expense of the auto sector."
This is the same Premier who recently welcomed the news that government-subsidized GM plants would soon be the home for the manufacture of the new "muscle car" -- the gas-guzzling Camaro.
Fine a hotel for one star-lit cigarette, but welcome the manufacture of thousands of environmentally retrograde muscle cars. And promise not to "abide" any effort to "unduly impose greenhouse-gas reductions."
This is a parable of the entire global-warming debate. Those who accept the science of the climate-change projections, who profess to be most anxious over the "greatest crisis" of our times, will say every right word, and pursue the most trivial acts of symbolic environmentalism. But when it comes to action that has any real cost -- political or personal -- they are as hard-line an opponent to any change in the status quo as the most relentless climate skeptic.
It really is time for those who say they accept the crisis represented by climate change to live up to their professions.
The skeptics can always retire to Glasgow. And contemplate the Scottish understanding of an enclosed space.
(Back)
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