Posted on 05/19/2002 8:12:00 AM PDT by Gabz
Delaware businesses fearful for future
Carmine Alessandro, general manager of the Brunswick Doverama bowling alley in the Rodney Village Shopping Center, believes patrons who may initially stay away once the smoking ban goes into effect will eventually come back. Other Downstate business owners are less certain, even angry, about the law. Staff photos by John King
By Jack Brighton and Hilary Corrigan, Staff writers
DOVER - Members of Delaware's General Assembly last week completed the bold step of banning smoking in nearly all public buildings.
The measure, Senate Bill 99, now awaits the signature of Gov. Ruth Ann Minner, who has said she will sign it into law.
The new law would go into effect 180 days after Gov. Minner signs it.
By then, the state may begin seeing the answers to the many questions that have been raised by the ban.
Business owners have questioned how the ban would be enforced and what impact it would have on their livelihoods.
Some legislators and residents have questioned how the ban could impact the state's economy.
For now, no one seems to have the answers.
"I don't know," said Steve Grossman, manager of JW's Dugout, a restaurant and bar in the Hamlet Shopping Center on Walker Road in Dover.
Owners of public places where smoking is prevalent, such as bars, restaurants, bowling alleys and Delaware's three slots casinos, have expressed major concerns over the ban.
Denis McGlynn, president and CEO of Dover Downs, predicted the state could lose as much as $57 million a year from its share of slots proceeds if disgruntled smokers stop coming.
While the stakes may not be as great for small business owners, the concerns are just as big.
Will customers come?
"We have been here 11 years and this is the first time I'm really worried," Ralph Figueroa, owner of the Touchdown Restaurant on U.S. 13 in Dover.
"The legislature did not consider small business. I feel I'm going to lose one-fourth of my customers, and I'm not a big chain, just a small guy.
"If I lose them I'm out of business. I built a separate dining room to take care of the problem, but now it doesn't matter.
"At least 50 percent of my customers smoke. I don't know what we can do. Some have already told me they are going to dine at home."
If smokers stay home, Mr. Grossman said, he will try to find ways to lure new customers.
"My job is to market myself more competitively than my competition to offer my products and services to a wider group of people in a smoke-free environment," he said.
Bob Pritchard, who for 25 years has owned and operated the Sea Ranch Motel, on Del. 1 between Rehoboth Beach and Dewey Beach, finds the law offensive.
"What in the world's the government doing coming in here, telling me how to run my business?" he asked. "It's the government telling us what to do with our property."
Mr. Pritchard doesn't smoke and his father, a smoker, died of emphysema. But people should have a choice to go to a business that allows smoking, he said.
Under the measure, hotels would be able to set aside 25 percent of their rooms for smokers.
Mr. Pritchard designates 21 of his motel's 22 units as smoking rooms during the summer months, his busiest season.
He fears customers might go elsewhere if a reduced number of smoking rooms are already booked.
"I make my living in 56 days," he said.
Carmine Alessandro, general manager of the Brunswick Doverama in the Rodney Village Shopping Center, believes patrons that may initially stay away once the ban goes into effect will eventually come back.
"When Maryland banned smoking, bowling took a 30 percent beating the first year or two, but as people became comfortable with not being able to smoke anywhere, business rebounded," he said.
The image of a smoke-filled billiard room could be history if the measure goes into effect.
Jim Wilson, manager of Rack's Bar & Billiards on U.S. 13 in Dover, might build an outdoor smoking area, but he's taking a wait-and-see approach for now.
He said nonsmokers he's talked to are happy the ban could be implemented.
"They say, 'Good, we can come shoot pool now,' " he said. "Will the smokers come out all night like they always do and will the nonsmokers come out all night? We will have to wait and see."
The measure allows smoking during fund-raisers at fraternal organizations and fire companies, a move some business owners are questioning.
"I don't why it is OK to smoke during a fund-raiser but not OK any other time," said Kishor C. Sheth, owner of the Dover Bowl on Jefferic Boulevard and the Fairfield Inn on U.S. 13.
Mr. Figueroa said he is afraid private organizations will hold fund-raisers "all the time" to lure smoking customers.
How will it be policed?
Business owner are questioning not only the law's impact on their bottom line, but how it will be enforced.
"How are we going to enforce the law?" Mr. Sheth asked. "When we have no openings for our smoking rooms, there are people who say a nonsmoking room is fine, then they get a nonsmoking room and smoke in it."
Enforcement could be even more difficult at his bowling lanes, he said.
"When we have a league, we have 200 people in the center, and we have only two or three (employees)," he said. "It will be very difficult to enforce the law. We have no desire to break the law but how to enforce it will be a great concern."
Mr. Pritchard has similar worries about his motel.
"I want to know how I'm going to stop someone from smoking in those rooms," he said.
"I can put a sign on the door, but once they shut that door, I have no idea how I'm going to stop that person from smoking in that room."
Mr. Figueroa hopes police won't be patrolling his restaurant looking for smokers.
"We got away from being strictly a bar because I used to have the police sitting outside all the time," he said.
"So I went to a restaurant to solve the problem. But now we might have someone sitting inside watching for someone to light up. Now it's our job to monitor these people."
Under the measure, the state Department of Health and Social Services, along with the Department of Labor, is charged with writing rules and regulations to enforce the prohibition.
Allison Taylor Levine, a DHSS spokeswoman, said the departments would not begin crafting the guidelines until after Gov. Minner signs SB99 into law.
Once the bill is signed, Ms. Levine said, DHSS and the Department of Labor will meet to discuss which agency has jurisdiction over which areas and then begin writing the rules and regulations.
Tourist boon or bane?
Those responsible for attracting visitors to Delaware are uncertain what effect the ban could have on tourism.
"I think it will hurt business in some measure, but as yet it's undetermined," said Mary Skelton, director of Kent County Tourism.
Jennifer Boes, a spokeswoman for the Delaware Tourism Office, said the agency has no way of knowing the ban's potential impact.
"We cannot determine, at this point, what the impact on the tourism industry will be because we have no other legislation to reference as a comparison," she said.
"Delaware would be setting a precedent with Senate Bill 99."
'A healthy move'
One group is pleased by the measure's passage - the anti-smoking activists.
"We're in full support of it," Whitney Pogwist, a community specialist with the American Cancer Society, said of SB 99.
"Delaware's setting a great example for the rest of the country."
The American Cancer Society expects the state's number of smokers to drop and the number of those quitting smoking to rise.
Illnesses associated with secondhand smoke kill people every year, she said. This bill will cut down on the number of those affected by secondhand smoke, such as people suffering from asthma, she said.
The move also will lead to lowering Delaware's number of cancer incidents and the mortality rate associated with cancer, said Eileen McGrath, vice president of government relations for the mid-Atlantic division of the American Cancer Society.
"We're very thrilled," she said of the bill's passage.
Karen Murtha, a spokeswoman for Impact, a Delaware tobacco prevention coalition based in the American Lung Association of Delaware, said the association has gotten calls and e-mails from people who say they look forward to bowling through three frames without having to use their inhalers, or who plan to go dancing at bars again.
"We're just very pleased that the legislators listened to their constituents," she said. "Everyone should have their right to breathe clean air protected.
"It's a great, proactive measure to protect everyone from secondhand smoke. People will become accustomed to a smoke-free state.
"We hope to be a model for other states. It's really a good, healthy move for the state."
Staff writer Joe Rogalsky contributed to this article.
Hilary Corrigan can be reached at 422-1200 or hcorrigan@newszap.com.
Jack Brighton can be reached at 741-8225 or jbrighton@newszap.com.
Socialism isn't creeping anymore, it's galloping.
Fight, God dammit!"
I guess liberty maintanance is another job the American people won't do, anymore.
Hey, Gabz, I'm going to rush out and tell my friends who lost their businesses (3 that I know of, and one still struggling) here in this small area because of these intrusive, punitive bans that theirs were NOT private businesses, but were instead PUBLIC property! Who knew? Since they were PUBLIC property--i.e., owned by the public--then the public--i.e., taxpayers--will be required to PAY for their losses! They'll be so happy!!!
Jeez! It's unfortunate so many jerks inhabit Kookiefornia; it would be a beautiful state otherwise.
I beg to disagree. If they don't have a permit, they are not in business. less permits = less businesses. I see no skewing of numbers.
OOPS - that won't happen - it's a private business only insofar as they pay their taxes and but becomes a public business as soon as they don't as they are told. and if they do as they are told and lose their business - they're back to being a private business.
I love double standards - don't you?????
Believe me - it is being done!!!!! and not just by me.
Hardly "dining areas," steel tables and steel benches, lets call them what they are, a place to chow down, it is NOT dining.
Yeah but they did exempt bars & bingo halls, except here in Eugene & a copule other places where more restrictive laws were grandfathered.
This is peoples private property we are talking about. The marketplace worked just fine. There were plenty of nonsmoking restaurants & bars available (and nonsmoking places to work, if that's your complaint as it is in PeeeeeeCeeeeeee Eugene). Nothing broken, nothing needing fixed. It's just disgusting. If I were in the hospitality business, I'd say you guys that disagree can just stay out of my business - I wouldn't want you there.
Dave in Eugene
Well for now you're just the picture of health aren't you?...The muscle will turn to fat, the tan skin will become leather like (hopefuly not skin cancer) and turn grey from smoking...good luck. Oh, don't forget to bleach your teeth and clean your ash tray breath too.
I actually don't disagree with smoking. If you want to smoke go right ahead. But is there some reason, other than the fact YOUR whole life revolves around it, I have to breath it when I'm in public places?...and they are public places. When you open a business, you're inviting the public at large to enter.
As I stated earlier, if smokers were less selfish thinking only they/you had rights and showed some common courtesy maybe the govenment wouldn't have had to step in. Maybe you and people like you brought this on yourselves...
If you want to open a private club for smokers only, go ahead, see if it will fly.
Regardless of the decor, or what you want to call the act of eating, people are seated in an enclosed area just the same as any other "dining room" would be.
I understand how much control the little fags have on you though.
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