Tobacco Control Advocates Mobilize
While irritated with Nelder, ordinance proponents immediately mobilized to defend the ordinance at the polls. At a meeting in Weisberg's home in San Francisco's Seacliff district, Weisberg, Loveday, Hanauer, Glantz, and others decided to create a new independent political committee to raise the funds to run a Yes on Proposition P campaign to defend the ordinance. Since Hanauer and Loveday lived outside San Francisco and Glantz, a San Francisco resident, was president of CNR, none of them seemed an appropriate chair for the campaign. Weisberg accepted the chairmanship of the effort and pledged to use his connections with the ACS to obtain $15,000 to get the campaign off the ground. The San Francisco Lung Association also contributed $7,500. CNR committed its mailing list for fund-raising purposes, even though everyone recognized that diverting donations away from CNR would create severe financial problems.
From the beginning, the theme of local control was the centerpiece of the campaign to uphold the ordinance. On August 17 the proponents held a press
Nelson-Padberg pointed out to the tobacco industry that “the campaign will be closely watched by major cities throughout America, and the conduct of the campaign—as well as the elections' results—will have major implications to attempts to adopt similar ordinances in other municipalities.”[23] Tobacco control advocates thought it was remarkable that the tobacco industry considered the San Francisco ordinance so important; as a result, they also viewed the fight as nationally significant.
That summer, when Glantz and Hanauer attended the World Conference on Smoking or Health in Winnipeg, Canada, they found a strong interest in the outcome of the Proposition P fight. Many tobacco control advocates offered suggestions on how to win the campaign, to which Glantz responded, “We don't need ideas, we need money. If we raise $150,000, we'll win, if we raise $100,000, we'll lose.”