Eateries resist telling smokers to snuff it - owners say they aren't obliged to enforce ban

The Dallas Morning News ^ | March 2, 2003 | By DAVE LEVINTHAL / The Dallas Morning News

[MeekOneGOP]

Eateries resist telling smokers to snuff it

Owners say they aren't obliged to enforce ban; Poss endorsed

03/02/2003

By DAVE LEVINTHAL / The Dallas Morning News

If Dallas Mayor Laura Miller expects restaurateurs to become her anti-smoking patrol, she's mistaken, industry leaders said Saturday on the first day of Dallas' restaurant and bar smoking ban.

The Greater Dallas Restaurant Association is instructing owners to abide by the new city ordinance, such as by posting "no smoking" signs. But it is telling them not to feel compelled to enforce it.

"We are not going to get into a confrontational situation if someone is smoking," said Mark Maguire, president-elect of the Greater Dallas Restaurant Association and owner of Maguire's Regional Cuisine and the M Grill & Tap in Dallas. "We're going to choose not to confront it."

At a smoke-free happy hour at Maggiano's Little Italy restaurant, Mayor Laura Miller praised the ban as a victory against illness.

"It's a public health issue, first and foremost," she said. "You have to stay strong and believe in that."

RICHARD MICHAEL PRUITT / DMN

Jeramy Tuggle, a waiter at Dick's Last Resort in the West End, had to go outside for his smoke break Saturday.

But count restaurant association leaders among the nonbelievers.

Ms. Miller angered them enough that the association on Saturday made its first mayoral endorsement ever - recommending City Council member Mary Poss, who is challenging Ms. Miller in the May 3 election.

Ms. Poss vowed Saturday that, if elected, she would attempt to overturn the ban.

"Some of these businesses will not be in business," she said. "Others will move to the suburbs."

Ms. Miller played down the endorsement.

"It doesn't surprise me. The restaurants are nervous because this is a big change," she said. "They'll come around quickly."

The mayor cited studies indicating that smoking bans increase restaurant patronage rather than drive it to other cities, as some restaurateurs fear.

At the Cadillac Bar in Dallas' West End, general manager Mark O'Brien said he opposed the ban, although he reported normal business Sunday and no problems among nicotine-starved patrons.

In keeping with the restaurant association's guidance, he said he would not harass customers who decide to light up at the risk of being fined as much as $200.

Among the smokers who were grumbling but not puffing at the Cadillac was Jared Davidson.

He said he would consider taking his cigarettes - and money - to restaurants in Addison, Arlington or Fort Worth.

But he remained at the Cadillac on Saturday.

Mr. Davidson sat quietly, his food before him and a half-empty glass of suds inches from his left hand. But at his right, the ashtray was gone.

"It's really weird - really weird - going into a bar, having a beer and not being able to have a cigarette," said Mr. Davidson, gesturing as if holding an invisible cigarette between his index and middle fingers. "It's going to take some getting used to."

MONA REEDER / DMN

Mayor Laura Miller says restaurant owners eventually will see the wisdom of the city's smoking ban, which went into effect Saturday.

At Dick's Last Resort, a West End bar and restaurant, Douglas and Karen Lambert sat at the bar drinking beer. Mr. Lambert smokes; his wife doesn't.

He said he would abide by the ban; he doesn't even smoke in his own house. But that doesn't mean he likes the new city restrictions.

"It should be up to the establishments, the owners, to decide where customers can and can't smoke," he said.

Likewise, it's up to customers to take their business to restaurants that appeal to them, Mr. Lambert said. "If you don't want to smell smoke, don't come in."

Jason Buckner of Dallas said he agreed with the ban.

Dining in a Dallas restaurant without the smell of burning tobacco wafting his way, and coming home without smelling of smoke, will be a welcome change, he said.

"I can't really stand smoke," he said. "The ban is a real benefit to people who want to be healthy."

E-mail

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Online at: http://www.dallasnews.com/latestnews/stories/030203dnmetsmoking.b2756.html

[Illbay]

If you consider local ordinances against, say, unrefrigerated food, dirty restrooms, and public sex to be "socialist anti-business government management of the economy," then by YOUR definition I guess I am.

However, I consider local ordinances to be necessary and proper. Times change, and laws change.

At one time, you could be arrested and jailed for extramarital sex. Now you typically aren't. Whether that's good or bad is a matter of opinion. But unlike you I can recognize reality and accomodate it when I see it.

[Gabz]

You know what, Max - I don't think Illbay is capable of understanding the difference in the terms mandatory and choice.

I truly hope Illbay doesn't enjoy something that someone else doesn't like.......we know where that leads.

I do notice though, that Illbay, while commenting upon my parenting, has no comment regarding my reference to Mr. Cherner's parenting.

Silence tells so much, doesn't it??

[dcwusmc]

Your "rights" to dictate how a private business owner runs his or her business are non-existent, period. The ONLY right you have is to vote with your wallet and either patrionize or NOT patronize the establishement, period. And if someone like you ever showed up in a business I owned and bitched about someone smoking, I'd throw YOU out and keep the smoker. And I QUIT smoking.

[Gabz]

I'm willing to share!!!!

[Illbay]

realize that the world does not revolve around you.

But it isn't about "me," is it? It is about me AND people LIKE ME.

It isn't about you (no matter how you may internalize it), but about you and people LIKE YOU.

That's the way a free self-governing society works. There are always going to be a few iconoclasts who want to be p*ssed off about everything, and want to deny due process simply because they don't like where it's headed.

I'm sorry that you are SO ADDICTED to tobacco that the thought of being without a cigarette for the time it takes to have dinner is unthinkable to you. I remember people making the same complaints years ago, about not being able to smoke on domestic flights.

They got over it. So will you.

Maybe, in fact, it's time for you to consider quitting smoking.

[Gabz]

You are the one with an absence of reality.

And YOU are also consistent in your stating that local government cannot dictate procedures of any kind to private businesses.

I've said this WHERE and WHEN???????

You made the declarative statement - it's your responsibility to provide the proof of such.

[Illbay]

Your "rights" to dictate how a private business owner runs his or her business are non-existent, period.

This is a horribly naive statement. You DO realize that, don't you?

I repeat (since you people insist on repeating the same hollow arguments), if you want to argue that health ordinances are "unconstitutional," that a restaurant has no obligation to follow local ordinances in the storage and preparation of food, or the maintenance of restrooms, or requiring employees to wash their hands, then you may go ahead and complain all you want.

If you want to say that it is absolutely forbidden to prohibit public sex in a restaurant, that is your privilege.

But you are just spitting into the wind.

The fact is that it is OUR right to propose a ban on smoking in places of public accomodation. And further, it is YOUR right to oppose such laws.

You have NO basis for saying that such laws can't be considered, however, because we DO have democratic rule in this country.

I support your right to oppose these ordinances, and encourage you to make your feelings known to your local officials who might be considering them.

But you must know that I and people like me will speak out IN FAVOR of these ordinances because we are tired of having to pay the consequences for YOUR bad choices.

I don't want to drive on the road with someone who is drunk, and I don't want to have to share a restaurant with someone who is so boorish and rude that they don't care if they are poisoning ME right along with themselves.

[Gabz]

However, it is never the reasonable and law-abiding that cause the problems, but the minority of irrational, self-absorbed trouble-makers represented by your comments here.

Excuse me???? You can make this accuation from what knowlege?????

I am, have always been, and always will be a law-abiding citizen. What do you think gives you the right to attempt to paint me otherwise? Just because I smoke and you don't???

Don't bother yourself, other anti-smokers have said worse about me, and I actually have much more respect for them (which is absolutely none) than I ever will for you.

[A CA Guy]

Within a month the restraunt will get ticketed the way people selling booze to minors are.
At first tens, then many tickets in the hundreds.
Just depends how stupid they want to be.

[Gabz]

Please get over yourself. You're not that great, regardless of your self esteem (or lack thereof).

What's with you and your ADDICTION to the idea that smokers are addicted to anything????

You obviously paid no attention to what I said earlier regarding that word, but are more interested in continuing to push the mantras of the anti-smoker organizations than in dealing with reality.

You're the one with the problem my FrIEND, not me, nor any other person on my side of this issue - smoker or non-smoker.

[Gabz]

I don't want to drive on the road with someone who is drunk, and I don't want to have to share a restaurant with someone who is so boorish and rude that they don't care if they are poisoning ME right along with themselves.

Great - I don't care how insulting you are in your comments - just knowing that I won't have to encounter you and your kind anywhere I go just makes my day!!!!!

[Gabz]

Maybe, maybe not.

Laws differ in each state.

[A CA Guy]

What is going to happen is it will get attached to the health code and then it will be toast.
We had this happen in CA. Same big deal for two months, then everybody got over it out here.
Most businesses except for the strip clubs did better in CA after this. (from articles I've read)

The issue out here in CA was we are so populated that people are on top of you almost. So in public if there is smoke, you couldn't get away from it easily, especially indoors.

So I think this will be common place in all fairly populated states if not all within 20 years. IMO!

[dcwusmc]

We live in a CONSTITUTIONAL REPUBLIC, much to your disdain... which means that the CONSTITUTION for the United States lays down the law for GOVERNMENT to follow, at ALL levels. The Constitution is a chain binding government, which means that there can be no such violations of PROPERTY RIGHTS (those pesky things that allow one person to own and CONTROL property as he does his own life). You have ZERO property rights in MY business. None whatsoever. If you don't like how I run my household or my business, TOUGH. If I am running a restaurant, I will run it to the highest levels of sanitation and food storage/prep/taste. Why? Not because of your pitiful attempts at getting LAWS passed. Simply because it is in my interest to have a clean place where the customer base I want will be happy to keep coming back to... making my customers ill will, in a free market and free society, assure that my doors will be closed more surely than the most stringent laws you can get passed... because an inspector can be and often is bribed. Sick customers, on the other hand, cannot be bribed.

I do, however, give you points for consistency. You are a statist thug clean to the bone. If only there were justice in the world... then the folks we read about at places like this would be your ilk.

[Gabz]

As I stated, different states, different laws.

I don't know what reports you are reading (other than those issued by the anti-smoker groups) but most businesses in CA did NOT do better after the smoking ban. Unless of course you are talking about catering, takeout, and fast food places.

Good Grief there is only about a 40% compliance rate in San Fransisco. When I was in CA 3 years ago the restaurants we went to were empty, except for the out door areas. And that was between Frisco and LA and we were ther for 2 weeks and did a lot of on the road stuff.

But I don't need to know that the ban is an abysmal failure in CA to know how it has already decimated businesses in Delaware. I live here, I know the owners of these places.

Folks living in CA don't have the ability those of us in DE have to drive, at most, 35 miles to another state.

The smoking ban in Delaware has been great for business, no doubt about it - great for business in Maryland, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey. Devastating to business in Delaware.

But people like you don't care, the businesses that are hurting are not the type of businesses you would ever patronize anyway. But you insist that every establishment cater to you, just in case you might, someday, think about going in.

But that's OK - when they come after something you enjoy in you liesure time, I'm sure you will understand.

[Leisler]

You're so ignorant. We breath AIR. We metabolize oxygen in, as you don't know, the Krebs cycle. 80% of air is nitrogen, which is also required .

Idiot.

Hey, where's YOUR objective definition of "clean air?" Oh, I forgot, it's Illbay, also known as Illbay The Mendacious.

[CARepubGal]

Well, it is a compulsive thing. See candles want candles buy candles. Sort of the same logic as 40 different brands of beer. :-)

[Gabz]

That's funny!!!!!!!

[CARepubGal]

That is another stupid libertarian trick. A Drivers license is something one is not compelled to have. And you can choose not to go to smoky bars and eateries or not. Trying to restrict others is a leftist ploy, not the act of a conservative. Come to think of it, do you pay taxes?

[CARepubGal]

And the street next to LDS temple square. No tank tops, smokes, music, preaching (unless the Mormons are doing the preaching).