Snuffed out?

Philly may follow New Jersey’s lead, unless City Council is just blowing smoke

 

by Danny Adler

Philly EDGE Correspondent

 

An elderly couple is walking toward the dining/seating area of Rick’s Ball Park Pizza in Levittown when a faint stream of cigarette smoke curls in front of them. The woman breathes in the smoke, and quickly turns to her husband.

 “Oh no… No… He’s smoking. I can’t sit here. No,” the woman says, and moves to the farthest corner of the restaurant. 

This particular eatery doesn’t have a non-smoking section, but many do. Few bars and clubs, however, have any smoke-free areas.

That will change in the state of New Jersey this Saturday (April 15) when the New Jersey Smokefree Air Act goes into effect. The new law bans smoking in bars, restaurants and many public places. Atlantic City casinos are to remain exempt from the ban.  

Philadelphia may soon follow Jersey’s lead. The city is closing in on passing its own Clean Indoor Air Worker Protection Ordinance. If approved, this ban—similar to those passed in New York, Delaware and New Jersey - will prohibit smoking in all public workplaces, including bars, restaurants and office buildings.

The most recent city smoking ban bill, led by Councilwoman Marian Tasco, has put both smokers and non-smokers in a tense debate over personal health versus personal rights. While most people see this as a schism between smokers and non-smokers, Tasco sees it quite differently. 

“We’re not out to regulate people’s personal behavior,” Melody Wright, Tasco’s public relations director, says. “It’s always been an issue of protecting people’s health, both people who go out to eat and the people who work at those establishments.”

The bill shouldn’t be seen as a blow against smokers, Wright says, since after all, some of those supporting the proposed ban are smokers themselves. If all goes well for Councilwoman Tasco and she gets the nine votes required to enact the ordinance, the smoking ban may take effect as early as January 1, 2007. However, in an election year, many council members are afraid to take a stance on the issue, fearing that choosing one side of the issue or the other could affect their fate in November’s elections.

“Council members are nervous about picking sides,” says Wright. “They are concerned about people’s rights and the effects [of the ban] on small business owners.”

 The main force pushing the bill is what City Council calls “influential encouragement.” Current prohibitions on smoking in public places in other states have had little or no negative effects on businesses. 

In an attempt to gauge drawbacks, New York magazine talked to highly-influential restaurateurs and chefs—such as Steve Hanson and Mario Batali—all of whom said the New York City smoking ban didn’t deter diners from going out. 

Many newspapers around the country, and the world, have said that smoking restrictions in restaurants and bars do have negative effects on businesses. In Ireland, for instance, bars saw as much as a 15 percent decrease in revenues after a smoking ban was enacted, according to the Huntington News. 

And while many bar owners see smokers as the people who sit down for longer periods of time, waiters and waitresses fear they’ll make less in tips if people stay away. Speculation aside, the New York Department of Health said that the number of restaurant workers who woke up with a morning cough decreased by about half after smoking ban legislation.

Personal rights, though, is the major battleground. Non-smokers feel they have the right to dance and drink at a club without being subjected to someone else’s harmful habit. Smokers say they have the right to light up in public places. 

 “Smoking is part of bar culture,” says Corey Fenwick of Philadelphia, a bar-hopper and columnist for Temple University’s Temple News, “but if you go to a bar in a city where there is a smoking ban, the only difference is that your clothes don’t smell terrible the next day.” Fenwick says he supports the ban for his own comfort.

Ryan T. Kelley of Langhorne, a former bartender at The Fox & The Hound in Center City, accepts the purpose behind the bill, but opposes the infringement on personal rights. "Truthfully I'm worried about the practicality of the smoking ban,” he says. “While it seems, at least on the surface, like a step in the right direction, smoking is still legal. It is something that, regrettably, a lot of Americans do, myself included. And for the local government to step in and tell not only me where I can and cannot smoke, but to tell local business owners how to run their restaurants and bars, seems hypocritical. So until smoking itself becomes illegal, it seems ill-conceived to outlaw it in public places."

Smokers in the suburbs, though, don’t have much to worry about. Not yet, at least. Pennsylvania state Rep. Matthew N. Wright (R-142) of Bucks County says that local counties and municipalities have no plans to create any smoking bans. 

“This issue is nowhere near the top of the list of concerns for local officials,” says Wright. However, he says that local officials will watch to see how New Jersey’s smoking ban works—how it is effective, how it is helping, or hurting, businesses—and go from there. It’s the domino theory of “influential encouragement,” in which lawmakers sit and watch, just waiting for someone to make the move and see what happens.

But if City Hall likes what they see in Jersey and the smoking ban does take effect in Philly - and the local suburban officials like what they see - there is potential to stomp out butts in your favorite corner restaurant or bar. 

Rick Tralies, owner of Rick’s Ball Park Pizza, knows that being a small business owner in the midst of the current smoking debate puts him in an awkward position. He likes to think that people come into his restaurant for the food, but is well aware that some people stop in during their lunch breaks for good food …AND a smoke. Ball Park, which has allowed smoking since it opened in 1974, is too small to divide itself into sections.

 “I’ve had people walk right out the door after coming in and seeing smoke,” says Tralies. “I’ve had one person tell me, ‘I love your food, but I can’t stand the smoke.’” 

While at Rick’s, it is observed that not a lot of people actually smoke there— a young couple, a guy on his lunch break from the furniture store, that’s about it. For the most part, there aren’t a lot of smokers, and, for now, Tralies can choose to allow them to smoke inside his business.

“It puts me in the middle of things,” Tralies says of any possible ban. “If I had to say 'yes' or 'no' to a smoking ban, I would definitely say 'yes.'”

That way, he continues, it’s the state’s or county’s law and he's not forced to pick one side over the other.

 “I just want everyone to be happy and comfortable.”