WEAVER’S REMARKS SLAMMED
By Jeremy Oberstein
Glendale News Press
08/08/07/politics/gnp-article07.txt
Aug 7 2008
CA
Article sparks outrage when councilman hints Armenians oppose
smoking ban.
GLENDALE — A small but irate contingent of Glendale residents
admonished Councilman Dave Weaver during Tuesday night’s City Council
meeting for comments he made to a local publication last week that
seemed directed against the city’s sizable Armenian population.
In the June 26 edition of the Pasadena Weekly, Weaver was asked about
a possible ban on smoking in Glendale, to which he said: "I don’t care
if it’s popular. It’s the right thing to do. But there will be a lot
of opposition from one segment of the population that loves to smoke,"
a veiled reference to many of the city’s Armenians.
Due to an editing error, the quote was attributed to Mayor John
Drayman, and the article was eventually amended to reflect Weaver’s
sentiment.
The Glendale chapter of the Armenian National Committee immediately
seized on Weaver’s comments, issuing an alert to its more than 7,000
members to contact Drayman and the four other councilmen to "condemn
Councilmember Weaver’s continuous unethical behavior on the dias
[sic] and to request a public apology from the councilmember."
On Tuesday, residents called for Weaver’s censure, his resignation
and expressed outrage that an elected official was behind comments
perceived to be directed against Glendale’s largest minority.
"I am dismayed in the year 2008, anyone would stereotype a segment
of an entire community on any single issue," Glendale ANC chairman
Artin Manoukian said. "It is even more shocking when the person
doing that is an elected official. When someone is elected to office,
it is their responsibility to demand equality and justice."
Missing from Tuesday night’s meeting was Councilman Bob Yousefian
and Weaver, who said a family matter precluded his attendance at
the meeting.
Weaver declined to comment about Tuesday night’s reaction, saying:
"I’ll be there next week."
Not all of the meeting’s attendees berated Weaver for his comments.
Glendale resident Evelyn Hanson sought to cool the heels of outraged
reaction by recognizing what she felt unified those in the chamber
instead of what divided the group.
"People just need to let go of the anger," Hanson said. "Sometimes
people say things they wouldn’t have said otherwise, but we need to
let go of the anger and forget the prejudice and forget perpetuating
prejudice. They really need to let go of the divisiveness."
But others in the chamber, including Councilman Ara Najarian,
said Weaver’s comments represented a chance for the city to combat
prejudice and that people should be encouraged to stand up for what
they believe to be a racial slight.
"I think it is an important thing to stand up [against] racial
prejudice wherever it’s seen, especially someone on the council,"
Najarian said. "Should we tell Rosa Parks to chill out, that the back
of the bus wasn’t so bad? No. We’ve got to bring this up. We’ve got
to confront it with the hope that we improve the situation and people
realize they can’t make stereotypical comments and racial comments."
That sentiment was shared by the ANC, which has seen a sharp increase
in membership since Weaver’s comments were first circulated.
Officials with the group have recorded 127 new contacts and said they
have received about 760 letters and more than 60 calls a day since
the article was published.
ANC leaders were quick to say Wednesday that though they had benefited
in the form of increased membership from Weaver’s comments, the focus
should remain on the issue at hand.
"I don’t want any one to turn this into an Armenian, non-Armenian
issue," Glendale ANC Executive Director Elen Asatryan said. "It really
is not about the smoking issue or the Armenian-American community. It’s
deeper than that. I was happy to get phone calls from non-Armenians who
said Councilman Weaver has always taken an extreme stance on things and
his reaction to any minority is open and ugly. It’s one thing to hear
it from Armenians, it’s another thing to hear it from non-Armenians."
The ANC also took umbrage at the portrayal of Armenian smoking habits
in the Pasadena Weekly article in which reporter Carl Kozlowski wrote
that Weaver was referring to "the city’s substantial and politically
influential Armenian community, where smoking tobacco — both in
cigarette form and from hookahs — is a widely enjoyed after-dinner
cultural tradition."
Asatryan strongly dismissed that contention and said support and
opposition for the proposed ban against smoking is divided among many
of Glendale’s Armenians.
"[Smoking] is not an after-dinner tradition, I promise you," Asatryan
said. "Something like this should have never been published."
A survey that the ANC recently conducted showed that 45% of the 740
people asked supported the proposed ban while 61% of survey takers
claimed to be nonsmokers.
Kozlowski and editor Kevin Uhrich appeared at the meeting and expressed
regret for the misattribution — which they corrected after the error
was found — and met with ANC leaders July 31 to sooth relations.
To assuage their concerns, officials with the Pasadena Weekly agreed to
let Asatryan write a guest column in a future issue breaking down the
tenets of the survey and listing some of the ANC’s primary grievances.
"We try really hard, but we make mistakes — we’re human," Uhrich
said. "This is just one of those unfortunate occurrences where we’ve
taken, I think, appropriate action to correct."
http://www.glendalenewspress.com/articles/20