Posted on 08/14/2007 10:12:50 PM PDT by weegee
It'll be up to patrons, bars to ban smoking City will not beef up tactics for enforcement
When the city of Houston's smoking ban expands next month to include bars, it largely will be up to bar managers and their customers to enforce the new rules.
The city is not beefing up enforcement tactics — it only has one smoking-enforcement officer, as well as 43 sanitarians who can issue citations — primarily because officials expect the ban to be self-enforcing, said Kathy Barton, spokeswoman for the city's Department of Health and Human Services.
In other words, the non-smoking public likely will be the ones asking smokers not to light up where it is not allowed.
"That will go a long way to provide enforcement," Barton said.
While the current law prohibits smoking in some indoor workplaces, including restaurants, lighting up is allowed in bars and the bar sections of restaurants. The stricter ban, which goes into effect Sept. 1, will expand to bars and other indoor workplaces not covered now.
The new law includes a handful of exemptions for cigar bars and tobacco shops, private rooms in nursing homes and designated smoking rooms in hotels, motels and meeting facilities. It also allows smoking on outdoor patios.
Stricter ban was sought Along with its lone smoking-enforcement officer, who does not work at night when bar patrons would be most likely to break the rules, the city employs 43 sanitarians.
They are not allowed to ticket smokers, but can issue citations to bar managers for failing to follow certain requirements, such as posting "no smoking" signs.
Violators could face fines of up to $2,000.
"There are so many people looking forward to it that we want to make sure that they know they have the right to help us enforce it," said Councilwoman Carol Alvarado, who pushed for the stricter ban before it was approved about a year ago.
To date, the city has not received any applications for exemptions, Barton said.
Lawrence Daniel, managing partner of the Downing Street Pub, said he planned to request a tobacco bar exemption, but had not realized the application was available online at the health department's Web site.
He has doubts, he said, about the department's ability to enforce the ban.
"I see a department within the city of Houston that is known to be short-handed, with a lot of area and a lot of places to cover, and an additional burden has been placed on them through this extended smoking ban," he said. "I'm just wondering how effective and efficient they're going to be at getting out there and enforcing it."
During the first month, the department might have some kinks to work out, Barton said.
"Probably in those exemptions are where the big bugs are going to come up, (including) people who think they should have an exemption for the cigar bar when they clearly don't meet the criteria," she said.
The ordinance defines a tobacco bar as bringing in more than 20 percent of its revenue from the sale of tobacco products that are used on site. A tobacco store is defined as one that pulls in more than 60 percent of its revenue from the sale of tobacco products.
Existing law allows health department employees to investigate complaints, but not to inspect restaurants at random for compliance. Under the new ordinance, inspectors will be able to randomly check establishments to make sure they are following the rules.
Since the existing smoking ban went into effect in September 2005, the department has issued dozens of warnings, but only a handful of fine-carrying citations.
Enforcement methods The city of El Paso also relies on self-enforcement. It has proved effective since the ban, which applies to all workplaces, including restaurants and bars, went into effect in January 2002, said Sue Beatty, who oversees training for the El Paso City-County Health & Environmental District. The city has no enforcement officers dedicated to smoking, she said.
"Mostly, if someone sees someone smoking in a public place, they can tell management and that's pretty much the end of it," Beatty said. When there's a complaint, either a restaurant inspector or police officer responds to it, she said.
But in New York City, where smoking has been prohibited in bars and restaurants since March 2003, enforcement works differently.
The city employs 12 smoking-enforcement employees and another 55 restaurant inspectors who look for violations during routine inspections, said Sara Markt, a spokeswoman for New York City's health department.
"One effect of the ban has been that people don't feel like they have to tolerate smoke in the public environment," Markt said. "If someone were to violate the rules, I think it is possible that someone would speak up. But we don't rely on that. ... We do the enforcement."
As the city prepares for the more restrictive ban to take effect, a group of local bar, nightclub and cabaret owners is using a federal lawsuit to try to stop it. The group claims the ban creates unfair regulations not allowed by state law.
A judge is expected to hear arguments for a temporary injunction against enforcement of the ordinance on Aug. 27.
CLEARING SMOKE
Houston's new smoking ban goes into effect Sept. 1. • Existing ban: Prohibits smoking in some indoor establishments, including restaurants, but not bars.
• Upcoming ban: Smoking will be prohibited in all indoor workplaces, including bars, with a few exceptions.
• Exemptions: Outdoor patios, hotel or motel rooms designated for smoking, private rooms in nursing homes, tobacco shops, cigar bars that meet certain requirements, designated rooms in meeting facilities during private functions, stage areas of enclosed theaters when smoking is part of the performance.
• More information: Contact the city's smoking enforcement program at 713-640-4359 or smoke.health@cityofhouston.net.
Or visit the city's health Web site at www.houstontx.gov/health
Houston PING
Maybe this will become a safe harbor city for smokers in public. < /sarcasm >
I guess no one cares any more about “Slime in the Ice Machine” LOL
Marvin Zindler just died. And despite his decades of covering the rat and roach report, there were always health code violations to report every week.
Ahhh, I have such memories of a certain outdoor patio in a downtown Houston bar. Having a few beers, smoking and joking.... watching rats as big as possums scurry up the alley.
What I like is the BS they used to sell this agenda. “It’ll make Houston a ‘world class city’.”
Then they gave an exemption to our convention center and other out of towner conference locations because they didn’t want to lose convention business.
Seems to be a world class city you DO need to permit smoking.
A good way to shut down bars.
It is so stupid too because most people who go to bars are smokers and people who don’t go to bars don’t start going when there are smoke-free bars or when cities run by Stalinists impose smoking bans.
So next will be a loss of taxes in the city of Houston, followed by stupid things to increase taxes without calling them tax increases.
Liberals are so freaking stupid, if we could just isolate all of them to one section of the country, they’d starve to death inside of six months. You could just do a Stalinist relocation thing, which they would go for, being Stalinists and then, boingo! Hoist on their own petards! And loving every second of it.
The proponents got the support of bar owners in the original smoking ban by assuring them that bars would be exempted.
Incrementalism is the way they accomplish their agenda.
Some of them are as big as the rats!
Sanatarians??????
Why the devil may this law; if you are going to say one thing and mean another.
Another example of idiots at work. I can’t believe these people actually get paid and what the hell is a sanatarian. I wonder what bright light bulb thought that one up.
Nope, they had fur, not armor. This was so long ago that we got sprayed by a DDT truck which was cooling off the mosquitoes.
LOL!
I love the smell of fresh air in the morning. ;)
I hate smoke nazis.......the same asshats that want your guns, your SUVs, your pitbulls.
They suck royally.
Little crybabies. Meterosexual fops and their mommy masters.
There’s a lot of conservative smoking Nazis....
A nationful of whining idiots!
If you were to put a sign saying "There is slime in this Ice Machine", most rational people would simply say, "thank you," and not use it.
That is never enough for the neurotics among us.
Simple Question: Why aren't "smoking only" bars and restaurants allowed?
FMCDH(BITS)
Well...i don’t know about them all being fat...i just know people on the far right that absolutely detest smokers and would ban them from existence....this actually hits on something that has split the conservative movement...smaller govt types and authoritarians...the far right and the far left have some things in common.
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