Right to smoke returned to police

PHILADELPHIA -- A department-wide ban prohibiting police from smoking while on duty or in uniform has been rescinded by Interim Police Commissioner Sylvester Johnson.

In October, Johnson's predecessor ordered officers to stub out their cigarettes after a newspaper photograph showed an officer smoking as he helped lift a man in a wheelchair outside a burning building.

But the Fraternal Order of Police objected and filed a complaint with the Pennsylvania Labor Relations Board. A hearing was scheduled next week to discuss the kind of policy the commissioner and police could agree on.