Take Your Last Puffs

By: Sarah Iani
Posted In: News

Monday night football has never been so visible.

Gone is the glow of the cigarette butts. Gone are the clouds of smoke escaping from lips as touchdowns are scored and crowds cheer. Gone are the tell tale coughs quickly muted by beer.

Instead, at Aidan’s Pub in Newport, harried waitresses hustle trays of Buffalo wings from one table to another, filling drafts of Newport Storm. One lone woman at a table near the window lit a cigarette, but she put it out two minutes later, even before Philadelphia got tackled by Dallas.

But in four months, even a two-minute cigarette will be two minutes too long.

On March 1, Rhode Island will become the seventh state in the nation to implement a workplace smoking ban in almost all public places. The legislation, sponsored by Senator V. Susan Sosnowski and Majority Leader Gordon D. Fox in the House of Representatives, bans smoking in restaurants, bars, malls, health care facilities, schools, public restrooms, public transit areas and other facilities.

The ban is part of an effort by The American Cancer, Heart and Lung Associations, the American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), Ocean State Action and the Campaign for a Healthy Rhode Island to protect Rhode Islanders from second hand smoke.

“This law is critical,” says Jim Beardsworth, spokesperson for the Rhode Island chapter of the American Cancer Society. “Ninety-nine percent of the people will now be protected and given a healthy environment to work in without being subject to the ills of secondhand smoke.”

Restaurant and bar owners, faced with no choice in the legislation, are hoping that after the initial shock wears off, patrons will continue to come in to their bar.

An October 2000 study by the Field Poll Corporation for the California Department of Health Services concluded that 56 percent of bar patrons are more likely to visit smoke-free bars, compared to about 11 percent less likely, and 31 percent reported no difference in their choice.

Patricia Nolan, Director of the Department of Heath in Rhode Island, testified in favor of the legislature. “The average secondhand smoke inhaled by a bar employee during an eight-hour shift is the equivalent of smoking 16 cigarettes-almost a pack,” she said, according to a prepared statement.

Even a few bar and restaurant owners are concerned with their employees’ health while working. The Brick Alley Pub, which changed to non-smoking almost two years ago, did so for the benefit of their employees.

“We felt that to subject our employees to second hand smoke wasn’t right,” says Tom Desmond, general manager of the Brick Alley Pub. “We asked them if they would like to smoke-free, and we have been ever since.”

Although the Brick Alley was a little nervous going smoke-free, Desmond feels that business has increased, since more families now visit the restaurant.

At Aidan’s Pub, the mood is positive. “We’re a family oriented business in every way,” says John Keating, bartender at Aidan’s. “It will encourage more people to bring in their kids.”

The Rhino Bar also sees families as the key to battling losses. Most of their dinner crowd is made up of non smokers. “A lot of people that come for dinner have young children,” says Heather Francis, manager at the Rhino Bar and Grille. “When they notice that we’re a smoking facility, they turn away.”

However, some owners are not that welcoming to the new legislation. Bars that depend on smokers for business are worried that the change will turn away customers. “Business will drop off initially,” says Debbie Krugman, manager of O’Brien’s Bar. “We have a serious smoking crowd here on the weekends.”

At the Rhino Bar and Grille, the heavy concern is on the casual crowd, instead of the weekend and nighttime regulars. “It’s going to kill the after work crowd,” says Francis. “Most people want to come in after work and mellow out, to have a beer and a cigarette and just relax.”

Keating echoes that concern. Many people who drink in a bar smoke because they are stressed, he says. If people will no longer be smoking while they are drinking, that can sometimes cause more stress.

But Francis doesn’t reject the law completely. As a non-smoker, she’ll be glad the smoke is gone, as well as the extra work at the end of the night.

“There’s a lot of clean up afterwards because of it (smoking),” she says. “People leave cigarettes wherever they want, in between cushions and everywhere, and we have to dig them out.”

Once the legislation is implemented next year, Rhode Island will have followed Connecticut, Maine, New York, California and Delaware in instituting workplace smoking bans. California’s 1994 legislature was the first of its kind, resulting in restaurants going smoke free in 1995, and bars, taverns and casinos following in 1998, according to the Delaware Online’s The News Journal.

According to a KIISS (Kids Inadvertently Inhaling Secondhand Smoke) 2003 study, a California-based organization compiled of board members that helped to bring about the California ban, 31.45 percent of the US population is covered by a smoke-free policy. That figure is up from 21.85 percent in 2002, and 14.6 percent in 2001.

The Rhode Island smoking ban, signed by Governor Donald Carcieri in July, allows extra time to certain establishments to comply with the new rules. These establishments, small bars with Class C liquor licenses (which allow commercial establishments to sell alcohol for consumption on premises, and carry-out in original unopened containers), and non-profit or charitable organizations with Class D licenses that employ less than 10 people, will be given until Oct. 1, 2006 to abide by the law, according to the Rhode Island State House.

Rhode Island’s two gambling facilities, Newport Grand and Lincoln Park, will also be required to create sections for non-smokers that have separate ventilation systems. However, a spokesperson for Lincoln Park maintains that the facility is exempt from the legislation.

Fines for owners who violate the laws run $250 for the first violation, $500 for the second, and $1,000 for subsequent violations.

More frustrating is that bar owners have been given virtually no notice of the impending changes. “I found out about it right after it was signed because it was in the paper,” says Krugman. “I was anxious, but no one has given us any information (on when we have to be smoke-free).”

However, news has spread, and although owners have not been notified individually, or even collectively, they have some idea that they will be going smoke-free soon, even if they do not know the date. “Everybody’s aware of it, every single one,” says Keating. “We found out when everyone else did.”

Still, owners are reluctant to notify their customers that their bar will be going smoke-free. “The majority of patrons are smokers,” says Francis. “We would rather it be a surprise than to turn them off by announcing that we’re going non-smoking.”

A similar bill banning smoking in all public places including bars and restaurants failed to pass through the House of Representatives in 2003. According to the Air Conditioning Contractors of America, the demise of the bill was due to the results of a study on the effects of a smoking ban on the state’s economy. In Delaware, the smoking ban cut revenues by 10 to 15 percent since it was implemented.

It remains to be seen what measures bar owners will take once the legislation is enacted. As of yet there are no plans to draw crowds back into the bars if the legislation is ill-received. “I don’t know what could be done about it,” says Krugman. “Ultimately things will turn around,