Posted on 01/30/2006 4:54:07 AM PST by SheLion
When it comes to deciding whether smoking should be allowed inside their businesses, local restaurant and bar owners said they want the SmokeFree Baytown Coalition to butt out.
The coalition recently announced their plans to ban smoking in all public buildings and work sites. Coalition spokesman Dr. Richard Ehlers said the city smoking ordinance should be strengthened to allow non-smokers the right to clean air.
Ehlers said the facts are crystal clear and they show business will not suffer because of a more restrictive smoking ordinance.
“It is our position that the economic impact of this ordinance would be negligible,” Ehlers said. “There will be no economic detriment to local businesses.”
In 1999, a city ordinance forced restaurants to include a ventilation system and a separate smoking section for no more than 50 percent of the restaurant’s seating capacity. The ordinance also banned smoking within 15 feet of the entrance of a public place.
While nothing has been decided, talk of a more stringent policy has upset business owners who said the decision to allow smoking in their establishment is theirs alone.
Dawg House Cafe co-owner and chef Maria Zoes said she does not feel any one should interfere with her private business.
“It’s not fair for the government to intrude with my business,” she said. “The next thing you know they’re going to intrude in my home as well.”
The Dawg House Café on 104 N. Main St. currently keeps its smokers outside on the patio. While Zoes said customers should judge her restaurant solely by the quality of food and service, she believes the lack of smoking inside the restaurant affects sales.
“ I know if we had a smoking area, a lot more would eat and smoke here and stay longer,” she said. “It’s an inconvenience for customers to go out in the rain or the cold to smoke.”
A petition to allow smoking began last week at the City Club bar, 108 West Pearce St., and so far, about 80 people have signed it, bartender Monica Pelc said.
Although the City Club owner was unavailable for comment, Pelc said she does not believe the city should have the right to tell businesses what to do, especially since owners pay for property taxes.
“It’s not for the city to be able to tell them what they want to do in their own business or their own home,” she said.
Pelc said she believed the ordinance would hurt sales because most of the bar’s customers are smokers.
“When the bar’s full, everyone smokes,” she said.
Tammy Lilly, bartender at the Sun Brite Bar, 622 West Main St., said a petition to allow smoking was also planned in the near future.
Lilly said she was worried about several customers who said they were not coming to the bar if they were not allowed to smoke inside.
“They say if they can’t smoke here, they won’t come here,” she said. “They’ll just drink at home.”
However, the argument about smoking bans reducing revenue in businesses that previously allowed smoking is questionable, according to previous studies done in cities that have already enacted a smoking ban.
The Texas Department of Health released a report in August 2003 stating beverage and restaurant sales for El Paso did not decline one year after a smoking ban was issued in the city.
A study done by New York City’s Department of Finance in 2004 showed an increase in restaurant and bar sales, as well as an increase in liquor licenses, despite a smoke ban enacted the previous year.
“The opponents of this ordinance have attempted to use fear tactics that are not based on factual data,” Ehlers said. “We have provided data in similar cities that shows when the policy we are proposing is instituted there is no economic damage to restaurants and bars – there is no reason to suspect Baytown would be different.”
Despite what studies show, Zoes was adamant about sales being affected at her restaurant.
“I don’t know where they get their statistics from,” she said. “They don’t pull the poll off of my register.”
Owners of Rooster’s Steakhouse, 6 W. Texas Ave., declared their restaurant smoke-free rather than setting aside a smoking section when the city first issued a smoking ordinance in 1999.
Rooster’s co-owner Freda Cox said she was unsure whether a smoke-free policy affected business because she noticed sales drop after 9/11 and after a train began to pass during lunchtime that prevented customers getting to the restaurant. However, Cox said she enjoys the clean air in her restaurant despite complaints from smokers.
“I wouldn’t have it any other way,” she said. “It’s healthier.”
But like her other colleagues, Cox said the decision to allow smoking should reside in the business owner’s hands.
“I understand what’s trying to be done, but I feel it’s the individual’s decision to decide what to do in their business,” she said. “If a person doesn’t want to be around smoke, then they shouldn’t go to a place that has smoking.”
Smoking bans currently exist in seven Texas cities, including Austin and El Paso, 11 states and nine countries.
The SmokeFree Baytown Coalition comprises 21 civic and public health organizations for educating Baytown residents on the dangers of secondhand smoke. Members include the San Jacinto Methodist Hospital, American Cancer Society, American Heart Association, American Lung Association, Baytown Cardiology, the Bay Area Cancer Surgery Center and the Bay Area Ministerial Alliance.
Now, the Globe, being antismoking to the core, never asked what impact the smoking ban has had on Provincetown
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