Calif Bar-Smoking Ban Working Already [01/02-1]

Even during the first few days, a California law prohibiting smoking in bars seems to be working. Most bars are smoke free.

Although it went into effect at midnight on New Year's eve when many patrons were already feeling their liquor and in the middle of a smoke, and despite claims of widespread civil disobedience and protest against this new restrictions, articles from impartial newspapers suggest that the ban is already working, and that in time even the small pockets of rebellion will be extinguished.

Here are excerpts from several articles:

**********

Excerpts from SMOKERS COPE WITH LOSS OF THEIR LAST PUBLIC HAVEN; LAW: BAR PATRONS FIND WAYS TO LIGHT UP IN DOORWAYS OR PARKING LOTS. BARTENDERS, OTHERS HAIL THE CLEARER AIR, by JAMES RICCI and JAMES RAINEY, Los Angeles Times [01/02/98]

From Pasadena to Santa Monica to San Francisco, smokers leaned out of barroom doors, headed for parking lots, retreated to patios or quietly defied the latest attack on the habit that has made them social lepers.

For Farrell Fullerton the new no-smoking order meant a simple balancing act. Planted in the doorway of Domenico's sports bar in Pasadena, the 56-year-old held his draft beer in one hand, inside the doorway, and his cigarette in the other, over the sidewalk.

"This is how it has to be, one hand in and one hand out. You can't have beer outside and you can't smoke inside," Fullerton said.

At Ireland's 32 in Van Nuys on Thursday, regular patron Tommy Shanahan sat sipping a noontime tea and rolling an unlit Pall Mall on the bar before heading to the parking lot to light up.

"You'll notice," said Shanahan, 59, an Irish-born construction worker, "that I'm not in there drinking. People'll come out to smoke and chitchat for two hours, and it's bound to hurt the bar's revenues.

At Yankee Doodles sports bar in Woodland Hills and at Schatzi's on Main, Arnold Schwarzenegger's restaurant-bar in Santa Monica, nicotine users found refuge on the patio.

But even outdoors, they were not necessarily safe from newly empowered nonsmokers. George Goshe told how another patron outside Schatzi's complained about fumes from his Salem Light. But he wasn't about to give up the seamless sense of balance acquired from his smoke and his drink of choice, Johnnie Walker Black Label and soda.

Goshe and his drinking pal, Dan Fitzpatrick, both retired, said they had taken to the road Thursday in search of an establishment that would still accommodate their essential elixir, alcohol and nicotine.

Mostly they had been disappointed.

Patrons and operators of a bar in the San Fernando Valley community of North Hills thought they had already found their way around the new law.

A small sign had been posted above the bar of the Norwood Inn reading, "Thank You for Not Smoking." But the bartender, who asked to remain anonymous, said she had subsequently read that the law does not apply to establishments with fewer than five employees, if all of them agree to allow smoking.

Early Thursday afternoon, nine people sat at the bar of the Norwood. Seven of them were smoking. So was the bartender. "We only have three employees," she explained.

County health officials said there is no exemption for small establishments, but owners might be confused because an earlier tobacco ban included such a proviso.

Most bar owners see no out. They talked only of the substantial fines that accompany the law. They could have to pay up to $ 100 for a first offense and up to $ 7,000 per violation for a series of offenses. Customers who insist on smoking can also be fined, with the amount determined by local authorities.

Many bartenders said--at least out of the earshot of newly fidgety nonsmokers--that they were relieved to be free of smoke, dirty ashtrays and smelly patrons.

Tad Nessina, a bartender at Domenico's, said the ban will make things easier in the long run. "I don't have to worry about selling cigarettes, collecting ashtrays and giving out matches," he said. "And it probably adds another 10 years to my life."

Many bartenders said that initial cooperation has been high, but that a real test will come this weekend, with the return of regulars and something close to the post-holiday routine.

For many nonsmokers, the clearing of the barroom air was viewed as yet another victory for health and good values.

"I'm very happy. The simple fact is smokers are killing people who don't smoke and that should be against the law," said Gary Powell, 33, of Santa Monica.

Powell offered a counterpoint to smokers' theory that bar business will take a nose dive. Facing the prospect of clear skies around the bar stools, Powell said: "I will definitely go to more bars now."

When he strode into Hollywood Billiards on Thursday afternoon, Josh Shilling, 24, pulled out his Marlboro Lights. Then he noticed the mysterious absence of ashtrays.

**********

Excerpts from NO IFS, ANDS OR BUTTS; STATE BAN ON LIGHTING UP IN BARS HAS SOME PATRONS FUMING, by NICK ANDERSON, Los Angeles Times [01/02/98]

There were plenty of angry smokers in Orange County--and some renegades lighting up defiantly--after California's new ban on smoking in bars took effect Thursday.

They bemoaned the loss of their last sanctuary; they carped about government intervention; they said the bar business would go bust. But, mostly, they found a way to smoke.

Until Thursday morning, smoking had been allowed in the bar area and cigar lounge. Now Legends customers who want to smoke sit on a bench outside. There are no ashtrays in sight.

"I'm not real thrilled with it," said Sue Brown, 43, of Orange, who obeyed the rule by stepping outside for a quick puff. "But what am I going to do? I'm just one person."

If observed in a similar manner elsewhere, the new ban would set a national precedent by clearing the air in most California taverns--from franchise sports bars to corner saloons and pubs.

Everyone appeared to be aware of the ban, and some were on the lookout for what they called "the smoking police."

Opinions on the ban were sharply divided. Several nonsmokers said they were pleased with the change, though they acknowledged some ambivalence.

"I'm prejudiced," said Ted, a patron of Gaynor's Lounge in Garden Grove, who would not give his last name. "Being in a bar without smoke is better for me. But I don't want to judge other people."

Agustin Heredia, 26, of Costa Mesa called the ban 80% positive and 20% negative. "When I go out to a place, my clothes won't smell bad,' said Heredia, at Legends.

**********

Excerpts from BAR PATRONS FUME OVER SMOKING LAW: DRINKS LEFT INSIDE AS THEY PUFF AWAY by Michael Taylor, San Francisco Chronicle [01/02/98]

''No Smoking'' signs were tacked up in bars all over California yesterday, and hard-core smokers nursing a scotch or a beer were so angry that if they had been allowed to light up, the smoke would have been coming out of their ears.

Patrons of Bay Area bars railed against the new state law that bans smoking in bars -- the toughest such law in the nation -- and there were mad mutterings about the loss of a comfortable refuge and the need to repeal the law.

In bar after bar, it was pretty much the same scene -- a few drinkers bellying up to the plank for a New Year's Day hair of the dog. And outside on the sidewalk, a few more moping about, their martinis and manhattans momentarily abandoned as they puffed away and groused about the new rule to anyone who cared to listen.

LePage said that in the first day of the new smoking ban, customers were cooperative, shuffling out to Grant Avenue for the occasional smoke, although a few people absent-mindedly lit up and she had to remind them, politely, to go outside.

A few blocks north, at Gino & Carlo, owner Frank Rossi said there were ''no problems, nobody yelled and screamed'' when the ''No Smoking'' signs went up.

Bar owners like Bill Colburn, of the Lost & Found Saloon on Grant Avenue, said that while a few patrons might stay away because of the no-smoking ban, most of the regulars will stay on.

''I think I'll survive,'' Colburn said. ''In this neighborhood, a lot of the local people come here. Some even call this their living room.''

In the East Bay, things were not much different.

At the corner of Piedmont and MacArthur avenues, Ron Mason, who has been frequenting Egbert Souse's bar for 35 years, put down his brandy and soda on the long wooden bar now devoid of ashtrays and stalked outside to light up.

For many, the smoking ban was an involuntary aid to cutting back on their habits.

At that moment, Graduate owner Javad Parsa came in, looked around at the entire place, its far wall quite visible now that there wasn't a curtain of smoke in front of it. ''I like it,'' he said. ''The place is cleaner.''

It may be cleaner and the view may be clearer, but your basic saloon habitue, the man who knows that a bar is a bar is a bar, and nothing else, doesn't really care if you can see from one end to the other, and doesn't really care if you might add 35.2 months to your life by not inhaling all that smoke.

**********

Excerpts from CALIF. BARS, CASINOS GO SMOKE-FREE, by John Ritter and Carol Morello, USA TODAY [01/02/98]

On New Year's Day, California became the first state in the nation to ban smoking from bars and gambling casinos. USA TODAY correspondents John Ritter in San Francisco and Carol Morello in Los Angeles filed this report on how smokers -- and nonsmokers -- reacted to the new law.

Joe Dougherty sipped an orange juice and breathed the unfamiliar smoke-free air of the Bus Stop, a popular saloon on Union Street in San Francisco.

By 10 a.m. New Year's Day, on the first day of California's ban on smoking in bars and casinos, the 29-year-old sporting-goods salesman, a nonsmoker, and his friends had gathered around some of the Bus Stop's 12 TVs to watch football.

"This is great. I like it," says Dougherty, a regular who comes in three or four times a week. "I'm tired of going home with my hair and clothes smelling like smoke. After a night here the lungs would kind of tighten up. I'd go for a bike ride or a run the next day and it always took longer to recover."

Outside the Bus Stop, on a bench, Roger Krupp took a drag from a cigarette and offered an entirely different perspective. The 62-year-old retired merchant marine captain suggested that "the people who want this law ought to suck it into their lungs like cigarette smoke and then" -- well, the rest of Krupp's proposal probably should be left to the imagination.

Krupp and a handful of Bus Stop patrons puffed away on the sidewalk outside the bar. "I come to one bar, and this is it," Krupp says. "The law won't affect where I go, just where I smoke when I'm there."

Bus Stop owner Gabe Ferroni says his employees began gathering up ashtrays and asking customers to extinguish cigarettes at the stroke of midnight New Year's Eve. Most complied, but a few were escorted outside.

Dave Berryhill, owner of the BAC Street Lounge in Redondo Beach, southwest of Los Angeles, has started collecting a kitty to pay the fines and legal expenses of the first bar owner -- there are 35,000 in the state -- who fights a smoking citation.

Only 18% of California adults smoke, but Berryhill estimates 70% of his customers are smokers. He intends to walk the thin line between compliance and defiance. He has printed up statements that he will hand to smoking patrons, and they will sign, to acknowledge he has advised them of the smoking ban. He hopes the ploy will protect him from the complaints of nonsmokers, and from citations.

The ban officially took effect at the stroke of midnight. But even the state Department of Health Services didn't expect bar owners to ask patrons to stub out their butts and take away the ashtrays in the middle of New Year's Eve revelries, although a few did.

Rather, bars were expected to have the ban in place and no-smoking signs posted at the opening of business Thursday.

State officials say there will be no smoke police trawling the bars looking for recalcitrant smokers. City and county authorities have been given responsibility for enforcing the ban. In some locales, police will be in charge, and in others the health department will. All will respond to complaints that bars are still permitting smoking. Bar owners will be liable for fines ranging from $ 100 for a first offense to as much as $ 7,000 for repeat offenses.

Starting Monday, inspectors from the San Francisco Health Department, for example, will be looking for evidence of smoking during their regular, twice-a-year inspections of the city's 1,000 bars. The city will give bars plenty of time to comply, says Thomas Rivard, a senior environmental health inspector.

"But if we feel there's a willful attempt to undermine the regulation, we'll go in with the police department and issue a ticket not only to the owner but also to all the patrons that are smoking," Rivard says.

Bars that persist in allowing patrons to smoke will be turned over to state regulators, which can impose the heaviest fines. Meanwhile, Rivard says, city officials can continue ticketing.

Until now, there have been few fines for violating any part of the workplace smoking ban, not even in restaurants.

"If someone lights up, typically another patron will say, 'Do you mind putting out your cigarette?' " says Kim Belshe, director of the California Department of Health Services, painting a rosy picture of civility between those who smoke and those who do not.

Extending the ban to bars "will require a fair degree of maturity and sensibility on the part of adults," she concedes. "Hopefully common sense will prevail."

Despite dire predictions of the law's economic impact, one study, by the University of California, concluded that the state's restaurants suffered no revenue losses after they were forced to ban smoking two years ago.

Lou Moensch says he has seen his business quadruple since he made his Santa Monica bar, Father's Office, smoke-free seven years ago. He says a few patrons swore at him and switched watering holes, but by and large even smoking patrons welcomed the change.

"This law is our one hope for the industry to start to regain its rightful place in our communities as a gathering place for everybody," says Moensch, who quit smoking 22 years ago. "Bars have been just a gathering place for smokers."

**********

Excerpts from THE BAR IS RAISED IN CALIFORNIA'S BID TO PUT OUT SMOKING, by Jim Carlton, Wall Street Journal [01/02/98]

A strange new smell is filling California's bars and casinos: fresh air.

California yesterday became the first state to ban smoking in those establishments, igniting a rancorous debate as it eliminated one of the last great refuges for smokers. The ban follows a California crackdown on smoking in all other workplaces, including restaurants, that took effect three years ago. If it works, the bar ban could be mimicked by other states.

The law has many supporters, of course. It is intended to protect workers from the harmful effects of secondhand smoke. According to the state's Department of Health Services, those effects are particularly threatening in bars, where officials estimate a worker inhales enough secondhand smoke during an eight-hour shift to equal smoking a pack of cigarettes. "This [ban] is a health decision that California has made," said Dian Kiser, director of Breath: The California Smoke-Free Bar Program, a nonprofit group sponsored by the American Lung Association.

Some establishments, though, vow a hard line. At the White House Restaurant in Laguna Beach, Calif., manager Jim Schultz pledges to have smokers escorted away by security, if need be. At the Pine Cone Tavern in Sacramento, Calif., co-owner Patrick Mahan said smokers will be refused drinks if they persist in lighting up. "We will try to take a very passive approach to enforcing the law, but we will enforce the law," Mr. Mahan said.

Ban supporter Ms. Kiser played down the potential for enforcement problems, predicting "an adjustment period" of up to six months before the smoke clears for good. And a recent study by the University of California at San Francisco found no letup in business at taverns in 15 communities that already ban smoking in bars.

"What happened is nothing happened and the air got clean," said one of the study's authors, Stanton Glantz, a professor of medicine and noted tobacco- industry critic.

Some establishments are adding outdoor patios or other open areas where customers can still legally light up. One tavern in Half Moon Bay, Calif., brought a double-decker bus onto its property as a smoking lounge where employees cannot go. Meanwhile, petitions calling for a legislative review of the ban are piling up like cocktail napkins in bars across the state.

**********

Excerpts from SMOKERS' LAST CALL; REVELERS IRRITATED AT DAWN OF CIGARETTE BAN IN BARS. by Anne Burke, Los Angeles Daily News [01/01/98]

Smokers in California bars took their last, legal puffs on New Year's Eve as the state prepared to become the first in the nation to outlaw lighting up at taverns and casinos.

Today, many smokers will slip out to the sidewalk or back alley for their nicotine fixes. But many said they would flout the law.

Bartenders said they would warn scofflaws that they are violating the law. But many shrugged at the ban, saying there is little they can do to stop those who choose to smoke anyway.

On Wednesday, many bar and restaurant managers were removing cigarette machines, selling the last of their cigarette inventory behind the bar, and preparing to collect ashtrays and stash them in the storeroom.

Some supporters of the smoking ban said, in so many words, good riddance.

"I'm glad because I hate inhaling smoke and I hate my hair smelling like smoke," said nonsmoker Cynthia Baltera of Chatsworth, a customer at T.G.I.Friday's in Woodland Hills. "You have people who chain-smoke at the bars all night and I hate it."

Another nonsmoker, Greg Nickola of Valencia, added: "Smokers are invading my air. I have nothing against smoking as long as I don't have to inhale it."

But many bar owners predict smokers will keep coming back to their favorite watering holes, just as they have continued to fly despite smoking bans on airline flights.

"Little by little, it's becoming illegal to smoke almost everywhere except outside or in your house, so this is the next logical step," Cerulli said.

Tom Friedman, general manager of the smoke-free Islands restaurant and bar in Encino, said tavern owners should put aside their fears.

"We've always been complemented on being smoke-free. I think that for every person they lose, they'll gain someone who's allergic to cigarette smoke," Friedman said.

The American Lung Association said bar owners who continue to expose employees to smoke could risk future workers' compensation claims.

Information on the state's new smoking ban is available through Los Angeles County's Department of Health Services Helpline: (800) 427-8700.

click here to return to ASH's Home Web Page: http://ash.org