Alderman played a leading role in adoption of city’s first Indoor Clean Air ordinance in 1988
By Bob Seidenberg
John “Jake” Allen Bleveans, familiar for his natty bow tie, measured words and flippant humor, would depart at times from the mainstream majority bloc position on issues during his service on the Evanston City Council from 1981 to 1989.
That was no better illustrated than during the council’s debate on the city’s first indoor clean air ordinance in 1988, when the alderman stepped into the role of spokesman/advocate for non-smokers.
At hearings, he passionately assailed his audience – which included council members and staff, a number of them smokers – on the dangers of second-hand smoke.
Bleveans, a one-time smoker himself, prepared for the fight by wading through volumes of material on the hazards of smoking.
“It was just like reading a horror story,” he told a reporter at the time. “There was no redeeming value in the area of cigarette smoke. I mean, there’s no way you can defend cigarette smoke going in a friend’s nose.”
Bleveans passed away peacefully on March 2 at Dublin Methodist Hospital in Dublin, Ohio, his family recently reported. He was 85.
During the smoking debate, he drew on his experience as an attorney with the U.S. Justice Department during the Civil Rights movement, telling one chamber of commerce leader that arguments used against the smoking ordinance were the same used against the 1964 Civic Rights Act, an analogy that received a strong objection from the official.
The Evanston Health Department, then under C. Louise Brown, had joined Bleveans in concern over restaurant smoking. An informal survey conducted by the department at the time found only one restaurant in the downtown business area with a separate smoking section.
Bleveans told opponents that “just as the city might move to regulate restaurants where unsanitary conditions had been observed, it should take a strong role in protecting the public health through a strong ordinance.”
“Why is salmonella any different than cancer?” he asked.
‘A snootful of smoke’
Although the ordinance was watered down in the end, his preparatory work paid off.
On May 12, 1988, the then 18-member council passed an ordinance requiring restaurants seating 40 or more persons to set aside 20% of their seating area for non-smokers.
While seeming modest now, the proposal had to overcome enormous resistance from the restaurant and business community communities, then marketing Evanston as the “Dining Capital of the North Shore.”
The stand also emboldened non-smokers, still on the fringe at that time. One cornered a local restaurant owner as he stood outside the council chambers where the debate was held.
“You can’t sit in the restaurant without getting a snootful of smoke,” she told him.
Born March 29, 1938, in Danville, Illinois, Bleveans graduated from Trinity University and ROTC in 1960. After two years active duty in the Army, he married Luanna Burdick and with her support graduated from the Texas School of Law in 1965, according to his obituary.
By then he had been recruited into the Navy Reserve JAG Corps for lawyers (because they had “snappy” uniforms, he said), Luanna reported. He remained in that role until his retirement at the rank of captain in 1998, she said.
He began his career as a trial and appellate attorney in the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice from 1966 to 1970, a role he considered to be the highlight of his career, she said. It was during that time that his children, Lincoln and Melanie, were born.
Before joining the council, Bleveans served as the executive director for the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law in 1970 and chief counsel for the committee in 1971, taking his young family to Cairo, Illinois, Luanna said.
In 1972, he entered private practice at Mayer Brown and Platt in Chicago, rising to partner soon after. He served as deputy general counsel for Continental Illinois National Bank.
On the council, Bleveans was a member of the majority bloc that supported a development with Northwestern University to create a high-tech research park.
The project never quite panned out but set the stage for the mixed-use Church Street Plaza project under a later council – one of the city’s most successful economic initiatives in that period.
In 1983, Bleveans served on the City Council’s then Police Services Committee when that committee drew up a controversial handgun ban ordinance, making Evanston the second community in Illinois after Morton Grove to enact such a law.
“I was privileged to serve with an extraordinary group of aldermen,” said Don Borah, former Ninth Ward alderman, who was considered the council’s floor leader at the time, in a statement this week. “Jake was part of that group. He brought intelligence, integrity, wisdom and compassion to his service and I am privileged to have known him as a colleague and friend. I will miss him.”
Encouraged his successor to run
In October 1988, Bleveans announced he would not seek a third term.
Cheryl Wollin, then a member of the city’s Environmental Control Board, recalled that Bleveans came to her home to try to convince her to succeed him in the Seventh Ward seat.
“At that time (the late 80’s – yikes!),” Wollin recalled in an email statement, “he was very passionate about banning smoking in any public place, including restaurants. Not a popular idea at the time.
“And I had never contemplated elected office. I was teaching, had a young son, had joined the LWV (League of Women Voters) and was serving on a city board. He assured me that this is where I was needed, and that I had his and his wife’s (a seasoned campaigner!) support.”
“It was a time when there were two aldermen per ward,” she said, “and he was sure that the other sitting alderman (staggered terms in those days) would welcome my entry into the race. He was convincing, positive, and encouraging! His temperament had served him well on the Council, and his stand on issues had earned him the respect of his colleagues.”
Since Bleveans’s early advocacy efforts, Evanston has been a leader in tobacco control efforts in the state. In 2014, the city became the first in the state to raise cigarette-buying age from 18 to 21.
John “Jake” Allen Bleveans is survived by his wife, Luanna; his son, Lincoln Bleveans (Meredith); his daughter Melanie Holm (David); grandchildren Will Bleveans, Jamie Bleveans, Annie Bleveans, Xenia Shuman (Mickey) and Hawken Holm; and nieces Cheri Stuart (Sam) and Lori Noyer-Kuroiwa (Don).
A service has been held. Memorial donations may be made to the Dublin Food Pantry at Dublinfoodpantry.org, WOSU public media at advancement@wosu.org or the ACLU at Action.aclu.org.
