Todd Lawrence knows he's got some hot issues to talk to members about, but the energetic president of the Weyburn Chamber of Commerce is taking it in stride. The Chamber will have a board meeting tonight, Nov. 7, to try and come to some resolution about its official position on the South Central Health District's bid to turn Weyburn businesses into non-smoking establishments.

"We don't normally have issues as controversial as this one," Lawrence noted earlier this week. "We held a meeting two weeks ago asking local businesses to speak up about how they feel about the smoking issue. We're going to go over the points that were made and make our recommendation to our members and the city."

The highly attended smoking discussion, held on Oct. 24, drew upset business owners and non-smoking activists from the city and regional district. The South Central Health District is asking city council to exceed provincial smoking bylaws and make Weyburn a smoke-free city, while several local business owners want to stay on par with what the rest of Saskatchewan is doing.

"We're constantly looking for ways to promote and help our local businesses," Lawrence added. "As a board, we try to make the best recommendations we can for Weyburn businesses, especially on something of that magnitude."

Another hot topic the Chamber board has been asked to help with is public requests for longer periods of free parking time in downtown Weyburn. The City of Weyburn has asked for the Chamber's viewpoint on both the parking and smoking issue.

"At our next general meeting we will discuss the parking issue," Lawrence said. "We hope to have everyone come out and help us make some suggestions to the city."

Members of the community are asking for longer periods of time for parking on the streets in downtown Weyburn. The current time limit is one hour. Businesses are concerned that employees or others may abuse the opportunity of free unlimited parking and make it more difficult for customers to park. If customers can't park, they may decide to go elsewhere.

"The biggest mandate of the Chamber of Commerce is to keep people shopping in Weyburn," Lawrence indicated. "We want to get people to look to Weyburn for their shopping, rather than making a day trip to Regina. We have a good standard of living here and those big box, big city stores don't excite me. Service at a local level is much better."