Good Show!!!!!!!!!!! HIGH FIVE!!!
Posted on 09/04/2002 9:51:19 PM PDT by lewislynn
They have become as familiar as lawn ornaments around the Golden State, huddled in front of their favorite watering holes in all kinds of weather, pulling on their cigarettes, jawing about the world's problems.
It has been nearly five years since smokers became officially unwelcome in California's bars, to anguished cries from many tavern owners and patrons. Now the Big Apple, of all places, is looking to ban butts, and Mayor Michael Bloomberg's plan is causing a furor.
Memo to New Yorkers having a nicotine fit:
Life goes on.
"It was a tough thing," admitted Marge Kendrick, a longtime smoker and bartender at the Zebra Club in midtown Sacramento, where a cocktail and a smoke once went together like peanut butter and jelly. "People resisted it at first. But not anymore. They realize that this is the way things are going to be. Now they just get up and go outside."
When the ban, the nation's first statewide law prohibiting smoking in bars, took effect in January 1998, many dedicated smokers and tavern owners predicted doom. Bars would close, restaurant revenues would plummet, tourism and barroom camaraderie would suffer, they argued.
"It was a nightmare in the beginning," said Robert Berger, supervising environmental health specialist for Sacramento County, whose department is in charge of enforcing the ban in unincorporated areas. "We had lots and lots of violations. Lots of angry phone calls. Now it's rare. I can't remember the last time I had a complaint."
The economic impact of the ban has been widely debated. While some individual tavern owners claim business has dropped as much as 30 percent since the ban took effect, overall revenue for California bars and restaurants has grown every year since the law's enactment, according to figures from the State Board of Equalization. A spokeswoman for the California Restaurant Association said the ban has had no negative impact on the dining business, and in fact may be encouraging more families to go out more often. California remains the top draw in the country for tourism.
Meanwhile, surveys have shown that more than 80 percent of the state's residents prefer an environment free of cigarette smoke, and a University of California, San Francisco, study published in the prestigious Journal of the American Medical Association found that smoking bans in taverns improve the health of bartenders.
Still, the ban, designed as a labor law to protect employees from secondhand smoke, has its detractors. Smokers' rights groups still decry the government's intervention into personal habits. Liquor trade associations have registered their opposition to the New York plan, as they did to California's.
But day to day, in taverns, pool halls and restaurants once clouded with tobacco smoke, even those most resistant to the ban have found ways to cope.
Outside the front door at Perkins Station, a haven for pool and dart players in the College Greens area, smokers amiably gather near a white plastic bucket that collects ashes and butts. Socal's, a venerable haunt in east Sacramento, offers a tiny enclosed "smoking porch" off the bar. Owner Bill Farrell said he spent about $13,000 to construct the porch as a matter of economic survival.
"I had to do it," Farrell said. "That first year was devastating. I never allowed smoking from Day One. I have some really special customers who are smokers, and telling them to stand outside in the rain was just unacceptable."
The smoking porch has proved immensely popular.
"It gets pretty crowded. Sometimes it just looks like a big can of sardines in there," said bartender Susan Terry.
After a rough couple of years, Farrell said, Socal's is hopping again.
"Really, I think the businesses that were hurt most by the smoking ban were the dry cleaners," he joked.
For some customers, shuffling out the door with their fellow pariahs has become something of a bonding experience.
"Someone will ask, 'Anybody ready for a smoke?' and we'll just go," said Kerry Johnson, sitting on a stool at the Zebra Club, a pack of Camels parked in front of him.
"It's kind of nice, actually," added smoker Susan Schatz.
A few bar owners have found creative ways to get around the law, which applies only to taverns that have employees.
"All of a sudden, some of these places have no employees. They have 10 owners," said Anne Frey, Sacramento County's senior environmental health specialist and an enforcer of the smoking ban. Such arrangements have been legally challenged, she noted.
A small number of bar owners have simply opted to allow their patrons to light up, risking hefty fines. First offenses cost bar owners $281, and fines double and triple with repeat violations.
"My customers hate the law. I hate it," said one proprietor, declining to give her name. "Drinking and smoking go together for a lot of people, and now they have nowhere to go."
Business at her bar has dropped 20 percent to 30 percent since the ban, she estimated. So if customers insist on smoking, she allows them to do so for fear of losing them. Her bar has never been fined by the "smoke police," she said, but she is willing to take the chance.
After rabid resistance at first, officials now estimate that about 90 percent of businesses in the Sacramento area are complying with the smoking law. In the county, things are so good that enforcers have temporarily stopped conducting random "sweeps" for violators.
"Our jobs were fairly dangerous for a while," said Frey. "We felt physically threatened in some cases. Verbally, we were being abused terribly. That's not happening anymore.
"We still have a few stubborn cowboys out there, but in the past year compliance has been absolutely great. People have adjusted."
Besides California, Delaware, Utah, Vermont and South Dakota all have statewide laws prohibiting smoking in workplaces, including restaurants. Dozens of American cities have banned smoking in certain indoor areas.
Now comes Bloomberg's proposal, which has triggered widespread outrage in New York and effectively ended the mayor's political honeymoon.
Bloomberg, who has said he quit smoking 18 years ago, wants the City Council to widen cigarette smoking restrictions to outlaw lighting up in all bars and restaurants. Like California's law, his proposal is billed as a health initiative, and has its vocal supporters.
But it is proving hugely controversial, with many New Yorkers calling the plan sneaky, uncool and outrageous, among other things, and vowing defiance. Washington Post columnist Art Buchwald has even weighed in, warning that the measure could "change the mating habits of the singles class as we know it."
In recent weeks, proponents of the New York plan have been consulting with Californians who were instrumental in passage of the Golden State's law.
Dian Kiser, spokeswoman for BREATH, the California Smokefree Bars, Workplaces and Communities Program, said she has armed Bloomberg's people with plenty of information, statistics and advice.
"In California, we can hardly remember what it was like to not have a smoke-free workplace," she said.
"Mayor Bloomberg is giving the people of New York the greatest gift imaginable."
Some residents of the Big Apple clearly disagree.
"Nobody has bothered to ask us what we think," said Ciaran Hegarty as he mixed cocktails at Langan's in Times Square. "This is America. It's a democracy, isn't it?"
Hegarty said he believes Bloomberg's plan is a scheme to make money on the backs of smokers.
"This is prohibition, and New Yorkers won't stand for it," he continued. "Drinking and smoking and talking, that's what it's all about in a bar. That will continue no matter what."
The Bee's Cynthia Hubert can be reached at (916)321-1082 or chubert@sacbee.com.
Good Show!!!!!!!!!!! HIGH FIVE!!!
Read this.
Sure didn't take a lot of posts before the "N" word got out...
One of the major tenets of National Socialism was that business owners could keep ownership of their businesses, but must run them as the government decreed. That, along with a disregard for personal liberties, and the (as someone else noted and I'd previously been unaware) hatred of tobacco together seem to make the 'N' word fit.
The slippery slide, the downhill slide, the boiling frog, whatever you want to call it, it's taking away personal property rights.
Once you give them away for one thing you take the BIG risk of giving them away for everything.
Once you give them away for one thing you take the BIG risk of giving them away for everything.
You comment needed repetition!
Actually, the anti-smoking crowd are NOT anxious to get into the establishments. Their agenda is to BAN smoking EVERYWHERE no matter what it takes!
I did a stint as a barmaid for awhile, before I got married, and you right! Just about EVERYONE smoked. And the ones who didn't, could care less. And in those days, we didn't have the big smoke eaters, either. The owner would just prop open the door.
The revenue is NOT up in California. It's all hype to MAKE it sound like revenue is up!
SMOKING BAN IMPACT ON CALIFORNIA RESTAURANTS
And fact being, California smokers are using prohibition tactics to get around the ban:
California Smokers Use Prohibition Tactics to Get Around Ban
The anti's have an agenda to ban smoking everywhere and are well funded to do so.
I am so tired of this war on the smoker, I can just puke.
Funny, thats what our fanatics claimed, until someone invited a few Councillors to go bar and restaurant hopping with them, Councillors response....... we had no idea of the devastation caused by this ban.
I should be DEAF then. LOL! Even when I have head sets on, the music is turned up so loud, it vibrates through my body. haha!
How funny the above statement is! The three places up here that accommodate smokers and the ones who get our money? Well, the non-smoking sections are always EMPTY! LOL
Oh my God, Great Dane. Aren't you just a little bit tired of the war on the smoker like I am? I am reaching the end of my tolerance with these anti-jerks!
I have found that the general public believes EVERYTHING that is in print. So, my new strategy is to hit them all with LINKS to ARTICLES. LOL! They sure can't dispute THAT, can they. haha
Five years after the ban, smokers have made other arrangements. The fact that tax receipts are up has more to do with the number of new "citizens" here along with more national chains than anything else. But you knew that, didn't you?
This is the guy whose entire fame rests on his anti-smoker rhetoric, the guy who sued the state because they cut his grants from $15 MILLION A YEAR to $12 MIL, the guy whose "studies" have been completely debunked by every decent, HONEST economist in the country, the guy who claims a PhD in economics but is instead a mechanical engineer, the guy who has said the War on Smokers is waged to pay his mortgage, the guy who admits he won't do a "study" if it doesn't "prove" his preconceived opinion.
Yes I am, and I am getting soooo cynical about studies and surveys that my first response is always...... who did the study, and it doesn't matter what the subject is.
We used to go there a lot, because the food and service were good and they had a separate smoking room, preventing pecksniff leak, adding to its appeal.
They went non-smoking a couple of years ago and we stopped going there.
We mentioned to our waitress that we used to be frequent customers, but stopped patronizing them because of the smoking ban.
She reacted like someone who's been in a foreign land would react to hearing their native tongue for the first time in years. Said that business has been way off, that she quit smoking herself 6 months ago and would love it if they allowed smoking again. She said they all used to compete to be assigned to the smoking section, because the smokers were more fun and tipped a lot more than the non-smokers.
That's my scientific study, and Stanton Glantz can shove his where the sun don't shine.
Rose, did you know that back in 1998, Chillie Pengree was on the committee to ban smoking in all the restaurants in Maine? I have that article somewhere, and am desperately looking for it. But it was in the news about the committee that banned smoking in Maine Restaurants and her name was one of them.
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