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.
Our whole life does not revolve around smoking, it revolves around busybody nannies.
And your claim of CLEAN air is nonsense, whether there is smoke or not, you are not breathing clean air.
LOL, You are getting quite pathetic.
I think it's a lot more sinister than that, my opinion is, they need for the kids to see, after all they are going to need more smokers in the future, or the government would have to go cold turkey on the taxes.
Anybody who ain't ready to shed the kid gloves and fight the Socialist RATS is an embarrassment to our forefathers who shed their blood so that we might be free!! This generation is forfeiting so much that previous generations fought to attain...it's time we ante'd up!!
FReegards...MUD
I wonder what percentage of people opposed to the government ban on smoking tobacco in businesses are content with the government ban on smoking marijuana anywhere?
Ya think? (but not second class enough to pay more taxes than most other people)
It won't fly because the government won't let you DO IT!
Seen any smokers airlines? NO? That's because the big brother govt says you CAN'T!
Beginning to get the picture?
LOL!!!!! (like me you mean?)
I'd love to know what the people at the Cancer Society are smoking with comments like that, because it sure ain't tobacco!!!
The only way they can guess how many smokers there are is based on tax revenues and their own surveys. If Delaware raises the cig tax like the Governor wants, there will be a huge decline in "packs sold" because the people that currently come to Delaware from MD, NJ & PA will stop buying them here. And more and more Delawre smokers will go with the roll-your-owns or buying via the internet.
Well, I didn't want to come right out and say it - But - Yeh.
If I lived in a state that had just basically outlawed my smoking anywhere except my home and my car, I'd be looking to move.
I live in the wild, wild West so I don't tend to factor in the "spillover" effect in the smaller states. Now that you bring it up, the last I remember anyone going out of state to buy anything around here was back in the '70s when Coors beer couldn't be sold in Oregon. I'm sure that those closer to the border hop over pretty regularly(both ways) to beat sales taxes or buy lottery tickets.
You've put a new spin on the way I'll look at the politics of the little Lib states of the Eastern seaboard. Thanks.
I'm sorry this response is a day late, I simply couldn't let these lies continue. Lewislynn, as well as anybody with a working knowledge of restaurants knows the difference between fast food and casual or fine dining. Here in Ca. lewislynn and his or her ilk have won the battle. In this state smoking is outlawed in all indoor business, some outdoor also.
The ban has led to a definite and noticeable increase in fast food, while a definite and noticeable decrease in casual, fine dine. Hell, remember the simple pleasure of coffee, breakfast, newspaper, an occasional smoke at your local cafe. I shall address more of the sad effects in a later thread.
That would paint an illustrative picture of what a pathetic life a smoker leads.
When your life is controlled by cigarettes to a point where you can't leave the house, or sit through a meal for fear you might not be able to smoke says more about how pathetic YOU are than what you might think it is that I desire for MY life.
Stay home, enjoy your pathetic smokes and the rest of us can enjoy real life.
Good God. What could I have said to illicit this convulsive, rabid behavior? Was it the coffee, newspaper, smoke statement?
2 privately owned new upscale thriving restaraunts (not FF) in our downtown, (one is less than one yr. old).
Less than one yr.old:
A new Chili's (chain), new Minnie's (chain).
An Olive Garden (chain) no room at the bar, with people waiting outside to get in,
An Outback (chain) no room at the bar, waiting outside to get in(Fri and Sat up to 45 min. wait,
A Hungry Hunter (chain) 30 minute wait,
A Black Angus (chain), 30 minute wait
Many other locally owned restaraunts doing just fine too. In fact a locally owned Mexican restaraunt has their 3rd restaurant under construction.....
No new FF, that I know of.
Sounds like you're right. Here are few things you should be aware of. Both Denny's and IHOP are losing customer share, I suspect it has some to do with a smoking ban, not all, some. From the sound of your post things are very good. It also sounds like you reside in or near a growing metropolitan area.
You concluded by stating, despite all this growth, no new fast food restaurants. I realize I'm a pathetic tobacco addicted social pariah, but does that make me stupid enough to believe the most incredible statement ever conceived by an enlightened soul? One last question: Have you ever worked in the private sector?
Being an ex-smoker, you would know that it's not a matter of "can't leave the house, or sit through a meal" and all that garbage you're carrying on with. It's a matter of don't want to go to a place where you can't have a smoke after your meal.
Every smoker I know, from time to time has to go to dinner somewhere where you can't have a smoke and they do just fine. The point is, they don't like doing it and, given a choice, they won't.
So, get over this crap about smokers being soooo addicted that they can't go out anymore.
If you have to play mental games with yourself about "how I feel so much better since I gave up", "Oh, I haven't got grey skin anymore", "Wow, look at those pearly-whites - not stained anymore", well that's fine. If that's your mantra and keeps you off the smokes, all well and good.
But, if you as an ex-smoker, now want to climb into a pair of jackboots and stomp all over current smokers, you are worse than never-smoked anti-smokers.
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