Posted on 06/28/2006 2:40:06 AM PDT by SheLion
STEAMBOAT SPRINGS — Saturday marks the one-year anniversary of Steamboat Springs' controversial municipal smoking ban, but local businesses that once catered to the smoker's dollar have no reason to celebrate.
Mike Miller, owner of Sun�--pie's Bistro, thinks the city's ordinance goes too far, banning smoking anywhere within the restaurant or bar's liquor license boundaries.
"It's almost impossible to enforce," Miller said about enforcing a ban that encompasses Sunpie's entire 5,000-square-foot outdoor seating area along the Yampa River. "You can be 150 feet from being indoors, and you're not allowed to smoke. You can inform customers of the law and put up signs, but you turn around, and they light up."
Slopeside Grill owner Chris Corna, whose restaurant and bar boasts ideal après-ski real estate, agreed with Miller.
"I said from the beginning that they were going a little overboard," Corna said, referring to the City Council that passed the ordinance. As president of the Steamboat Springs Restaurant Association, he spoke to the council when the ordinance was proposed. "It's not against the law to smoke. If they can't smoke inside, they should at least be able to smoke outside."
Because of the ban, Corna and Miller said they spend their mornings picking up cigarette butts along the edges of their properties. Corna thinks it would be more reasonable if his restaurant was subject only to the Colorado Clean Indoor Air Act that goes into effect Saturday.
The Clean Indoor Air Act -- essentially a statewide smoking ban -- prohibits smoking in public indoor areas and extends to a 15-foot radius around entryways, making it possible for owners such as Miller and Corna to accommodate customers who want to smoke outside rather than banishing them from their properties.
For businesses that lack exterior seatings to attract customers, the municipal ban has had a much more debilitating effect.
John Hoekstra has owned Golden Cue Billiards for 19 years. He estimated since last July's ban began, he has lost between $5,000 and $6,000 a month.
"Soon as the weather hit and it got cold in October -- bam -- there it went," Hoekstra said. "It used to be packed in here for Broncos games -- 15 to 20 people. Now I have only one or two people."
Steamboat Springs Police Department community service supervisor Tom Whiddon said most business owners have complied with the ban. Whiddon said the city has issued only a few warnings to businesses that violated the smoking ban.
"We respond if we get a complaint," Whiddon said. "We're not out there looking for every person that might be smoking and measuring the distance from the door."
Despite the statewide ban's looser regulations, restaurant and bar owners who own establishments outside of Steamboat city limits fear taking financial blows similar to Hoekstra's.
J. Elliott, owner of Oak Creek's Colorado Bar & Grill, sees the ban as government intrusion on his relationship with his customers' individual choices.
"The bar is about 47 percent of my business," Elliott said. "If this goes into effect, I'll have to make some drastic changes."
Fearing the worst, Elliott said he had his business up for sale "back in February when (the act) passed and was voted into the state Senate."
Because the Colorado Clean Air Act does not apply to casinos, cigar bars or Denver International Airport smoking lounges, Oak Creek mayor Kathy "Cargo" Rodeman had hoped a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court would result in a temporary injunction that could save the three Oak Creek businesses that allow smoking. But on Friday, U.S. District Judge Lewis Babcock refused to delay the ban from taking effect. His ruling did not affect the lawsuit itself, which can still proceed after the ban begins.
"If it's employees they're trying to protect, why are they making the ones with the most employees exempt?" Rodeman asked. "There's more employees in one casino than every business in Oak Creek -- times 10."
Teresa Wright, Northwest Colorado Visiting Nurse Association's tobacco prevention program coordinator, is quick to cite evidence she said contradicts Rodeman's and Elliott's fears that the act will destroy Oak Creek businesses.
"All the research we have from other states is that it always results in a positive impact on the economy," Wright said about legislation aimed at increasing public health. "Costs decrease for businesses because they no longer have to pay for added insurance coverage, increased ventilation and extra effort to clean their establishment."
Rather than dreading the July 1 enactment, Wright urges smokers to seize the day as a quit date and suggests calling (800) 639-QUIT, a toll-free quit line that provides Colorado residents with free counseling and nicotine patches.
But, but, but, they say it doesn't hurt business!
They say it improves it!(sarc)
Stinking lying antis.
I have. I roll my own and no longer take my money to a restaurant/bar/tavern that can not accomodate smokers.
Smokers for some reason are not capable of making corrections to failed strategies. Possibly it has something to do with the type of personality that cannot shake their addiction.
Your sure are a trip! LOL
You just HAD to put that jab in there, didn't you? What a putz you are Ray. And you wonder why people can't stand you in here.
I'm sure YOU are addicted to something. Running? Pepsi? Working out at the gym?
Oh! I know ONE addiction you have! BASHING AND TRASHING PEOPLE WHO SMOKE. Just can't shake your addiction, can you Ray!
Thanks for the ping!
Teresa's terrified she may have to get a real job.
And precisely what are the methods of the Hitlerian tobacco prevention geeks at the Visiting Nurse Association?
Hectoring you in your own home about smoking?
I've had it up to here with the jihad - too many stupid and annoying people feel themselves validated.
What amazes me is how many of them show up on these threads to bray.
But it's probably ok to burn an American flag in one of those bars. Freedom of speech don't you know....
Bingo...........let's paint American Flags on all cigarettes.........
You might have just hit on something there...
Hey, I'm not smoking a cigarette, I'm burning the flag.......free speech, dontcha know!!!!!!
Awesome, Randall.
That's a super idea.
LOL! I loved your post #23!
"What amazes me is how many of them show up on these threads to bray."
Ain't that the truth. You ought to see the latest smoking thread at another forum I'm on.
I just had a "conservative" call me a 'FACIST". I told him I thought it was pretty funny.
Sometimes, on these threads, I feel like I'm at the democratic national convention, listening to howard dean, the way some of these "conservatives" carry on.
Ain't it goooooooooooood? LOL
She must have just taken up the habit. I don't see the stained fingers and teeth.
If that's the case, where's the lawsuit? It should be a slam dunk case if what you say is true.
Well sweetie! "I" have been smoking since I was 16 and "I" don't have stained fingers and teeth!
Aren't you cute? Ever hear of personal hygiene? FELLOW FREEPER!
(It's the bewitching hour. Drink much?)
"Because the Colorado Clean Air Act does not apply to casinos, cigar bars or Denver International Airport smoking lounges..."
All the bars should rename themselves as "_____________ Cigar Bar."
I've also noticed that some long time smokers have upper lips that are permanently curled down a bit, as if clenching one of the cowboy killers.
I've also noticed that some long time smokers have upper lips that are permanently curled down a bit, as if clenching one of the cowboy killers.
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