Story by Chris Graham

I’ll be the first to say that I wish that more restaurants prohibited indoor smoking - I mean, seriously, I have asthma and can barely breathe as it is without somebody blowing unfiltered Winston or Marlboro into my lungs.

But that said, do I think restaurants should be required to ban indoor smoking?

The way that I’m not answering that one right off might indicate to you how conflicted I am personally on this issue.

Because the way I look at it, if a restaurant wants to cater to customers who smoke and is willing to risk losing my business to do so, they can have at it.

I can be persuaded, of course.

“It’s a public-health issue, not a business issue,” says Terry Hargrove, the director of community relations for the American Lung Association of Virginia, which has been a spearhead of the effort to get the Virginia General Assembly and Gov. Tim Kaine together to implement a ban on all indoor smoking in public places in the Commonwealth.

“That’s something that people are really getting caught up in when looking at it,” Hargrove says. “If you think about some of the chemicals that are contained in secondhand smoke, arsenic is one of them. We have very stringent health guidelines when it comes to how our food is prepared and what’s in our water and things like that. We wouldn’t allow arsenic to be put into our food - so why are we allowing arsenic to be put into the air in restaurants?

“We view this as a public-health issue. It’s a serious public-health issue - it’s not a business issue,” Hargrove says.

I can attest to that bit about the health issue personally - my asthma was triggered by extensive exposure to cigarette smoke as a child, and God only knows what I have to look forward to down the road in terms of the greater risk that I assume myself to be at for lung cancer and other lung diseases.

But now that I’m an adult, I can choose to eat in restaurants where indoor smoking is not allowed - and can choose to avoid those dining establishments where it is permitted. Do I need the government to help me along there?

“We think that the marketplace is addressing the needs of the public - for smokers and for nonsmokers,” says Julia Ciarlo Hammond, the Virginia state director of the National Federation of Independent Business, who was closely involved in the legislative battle over smoking in restaurants in the 2007 General Assembly session in her former job as director of government relations for the Virginia Hospitality and Travel Association.

“There are tons of smoke-free dining options available to the public. Plus there’s that group of restaurants that get left out when we talk about everyone who seems to be smoking or nonsmoking, but there are some that are really trying to craft policies that meet their specific customers’ demands,” Hammond says.

“In Virginia Beach, for example, many of the restaurants go smoke-free in the summer when they have those out-of-town tourists who are used to smoke-free environments, and then to help fill those restaurants in the fall, they allow smoking again for their locals,” Hammond says. “There are some places that now have time-restricted smoking. So they’re smoke-free during normal dining hours, and then from 9 o’clock on, when it’s more of a bar crowd, dancing, that kind of thing, then they allow smoking.

“So these restaurants are really meeting what their customers want - and there really isn’t any one-size-fits-all for restaurants in Virginia,” Hammond says.

Legislation aimed at banning indoor smoking would not only implement a one-size-fits-all structure for restaurants across the state, but it would put many at risk of going out of business, Hammond says.

“There are lots of restaurants that are smoke-free, and they’re really marketing that. They’re working and catering to the smoke-free crowd, and they’re making great business off of that. And some of them are irritated at the idea of some blanket ban, because that will hurt their business as well - because once everybody’s the same, they lose that little niche market that they’re going after,” Hammond says.
“Restaurants work on such small profit margins - particularly the indepedently-owneds, the little mom-and-pops. We’re talking about 4 to 5 percent a year,” Hammond says.

“Restaurant owners can’t afford not to listen to their customers. And you see this with other trends - low-fat, low-carb, fat-free. The minute that’s the in thing, and that’s what customers are asking for, restaurants are giving it to them,” Hammond says.

“They are going to do and give customers exactly what they want because they need their business. So if all these people who frequent restaurants who have smoking policies tell managers, We will not come here if you continue to allow smoking, they will change. It’s really that easy,” Hammond says.

The General Assembly passed legislation earlier this year that would have banned smoking in all restaurants except those that did not post a sign saying that smoking was permitted on the premises. Gov. Kaine attempted to amend the measure, introduced by House Majority Leader Morgan Griffith, R-Salem, to prohibit smoking in restaurants across the board.

Legislators defeated the amendment, but were not able to override Kaine’s subsequent veto of Griffith’s original bill.

“There now is broad agreement that additional smoking limitations are warranted, yet my amendment was not accepted by the House of Delegates,” Kaine said in a statement after the legislative doings had been completed.

“I am not willing to sign legislation that would eliminate the current requirement for a nonsmoking section in restaurants. With this veto, that requirement remains in effect, and I have asked my health commissioner to convene stakeholders to develop a proposal for next year,” Kaine said.

Terry Hargrove is involved in that formal effort - and hopes that legislation that is being worked on with lawmakers sympathetic to the cause of banning indoor smoking in public places and workplaces can meet with approval in 2008.

“We just feel that every Virginian deserves the right to clean air - and it’s not fair to protect some while excluding others,” Hargrove says. “So while the governor has said that he would not support going all the way with this, this is something that we’re still not going to give up on. We’re still going to work on educating the governor and work on educating the public - and activating Virginians to contact the governor and their legislators to let them know that this is something that they care dearly about.”

The governor’s decision to step up on the restaurant issue could be significant down the line, says Hilton Oliver, the executive director of Virginia GASP - the acronym spells out Group to Alleviate Smoking in Public.

“I was surprised to see him get involved - but it was a pleasant surprise, because what he did was right,” Oliver says. “He realized this is what the people of the state wanted - which clearly they did. There were polls taken that showed that over 70 percent - and in some areas as many as 80 percent - of the people wanted this ban on smoking.”

The poll numbers cited by Oliver are from a WDBJ7-Survey USA poll conducted in April that actually had 65 percent of those questioned expressing support for a statewide ban on indoor smoking in restaurants.

“I hope that a large number of those people who disdained their constituents’ wishes and showed arrogant disregard for the people who elected them are thrown out on their ear in November - because they go around pumping hands claiming that they are listening to the people, and then they do something like this. This is beyond an outrage,” Oliver says.

Even Julia Hammond concedes that “the drumbeat is getting louder and louder” toward a comprehensive ban.

“Unfortunately, the idea that you can regulate all these businesses under one model and not do damage to some of them is shortsighted,” Hammond says. “And the impact on the economy has to be considered - and the impact on the state with sales taxes and meals taxes. We are just very concerned that this one policy could put some of our businesses out of business - and that people aren’t thinking about the unintended consequences of this. And not recognizing that no one is forced to eat in a restaurant, and no one is forced to work in a restaurant.”

Terry Hargrove questions the basis of that argument - that a blanket ban would somehow hurt some segments of the restaurant sector more than others.

“There are now 19 states that have passed smoke-free policies that include restaurants and bars - and what we’ve learned from those states is that it’s actually best if there is a blanket policy, and not a patchwork of different policies across the state, so that everyone is playing by the same rules, and there’s a level playing field,” Hargrove says. “What you don’t want to have is exemptions for certain businesses so that some restaurants are smoking and other restaurants are nonsmoking. I think that could create problems in the end - by opening up loopholes that you would have to then down the road come back and look at again.

“If you have a level playing field, and you have everyone as a nonsmoking restaurant, there’s no longer any debate over whether someone will lose business or not. And it’s actually been proven that they will actually gain more business - because more people will go out to eat and stay longer and bring in their families,” Hargrove says.

Hargrove brought up the example of arsenic earlier to buttress her point. Hilton Oliver brings to mind a more memorable and lasting set of images.

“Sometimes people will come along and say that they don’t like to dictate to business what to do. Well, they don’t mind dictating to businesses that they can’t have rat droppings in the kitchen. They don’t mind dictating to businesses that the employees have to wash their hands after they use the restroom,” Oliver says.

“So if they require those things, which any common-sense person would demand that they require, it’s not anything to ban a health hazard that actually kills people - as it has been proven, this is actually a worse health hazard. That argument about interfering with private businesses is totally bogus.”
Not bad, not bad …

But I can still be persuaded.

For further reading

American Lung Association of Virginia - www.lungusa.org/virginia

Virginia Group to Alleviate Smoking in Public - www.gasp.org

Virginia Hospitality and Travel Association - www.vhta.org

Filed under: 6-July 2007 Issue