Restaurant Related News

Advocate Clears the Air:

Smoke-Free Eateries Boost Sales, Health of Diners and Workers

By: Paul McIntyre
Source: Nations Restaurant News
Published: February 25, 2002

The offer to seat diners in a smoking or non-smoking section seemed progressive a decade ago. Unfortunately, for too many restaurateurs it still is. Five states making up 15 percent of the U.S. population now ban smoking in restaurants. The largest is California, which has had the strictest statewide ban since 1995.

As smoke-free advocates campaign in state capitals and city halls to promote such smoking bans in their own jurisdictions, two obstacles consistently stand firmly in their way: the tobacco industry and restaurants.

Tobacco's reasons for objection are obvious, but restaurateurs' staunch defense of the right to smoke in their dining rooms is more puzzling. As is true of all business people, their first concern is the bottom line. Restaurateurs are convinced that banning smoking in their establishments will lead people to eat at home or find some other food service venue where they can eat and smoke at the same time.

Yet evidence showing the correlation between smoking bans and business loss simply does not exist. In California, where the nation's strictest smoking ban continues, the tobacco industry projected that restaurant sales would drop by at least 7 percent when the ban became law. However, just the opposite has happened -- sales have increased 4 percent to 8 percent annually since the ban was enacted. That holds true for industry sales as a whole and on a per-unit basis. It also remains consistent when those sales are compared to sales in other retail sectors.

Some restaurateurs fear that a ban in their jurisdiction will encourage people to walk across the street to a neighboring city or state where they can eat and smoke. Again, evidence of that risk cannot be shown. In Lodi, Beverly Hills, San Luis Obispo and other California cities that enacted 100-percent bans on smoking in restaurants before the entire state did, sales figures evidenced no loss in business. In Lake Tahoe, where diners easily can cross the street to dine in Nevada's smoking-permitted restaurants, no economic hardship has occurred.

The same is true for airlines. When smoking on flights was banned a decade ago, passengers did not stop flying. Conversely, they took to the skies more frequently than ever before.

Still resisting change, however, restaurateurs cry for freedom of choice and the right to regulate their own businesses without government intervention. But on matters of health and safety, government does have an important role. It tells restaurant workers that they must wash their hands, maintain food-temperature standards and limit blood-alcohol levels to protect their patrons and workers alike.

Aren't the 43 carcinogens in secondhand smoke a health-and-safety issue, too? With 53,000 nonsmokers killed annually by secondhand smoke, the number of deaths from drunk driving, E.coli, salmonella, hepatitis and all other food-borne illnesses combined does not even come close.

The tobacco industry now is promoting ventilation systems as the silver bullet that can end the controversy and accommodate smokers and nonsmokers dining side by side. But while ventilation systems have come a long way in removing the smell of tobacco smoke from the air, none has shown the ability to remove its carcinogens.

Some restaurateurs address the risk by recommending that workers not work in restaurants if they want to avoid secondhand smoke exposure. If food service were an insignificant industry, that might be a practical choice. However, 11.6 million people are employed in the restaurant industry, making it one of the top three employers in the nation. In regard to giving people their first job, restaurants rank at the top of all industries, and they rank particularly high in their employment of women and minorities.

Doctors, lawyers, bankers, accountants, stockbrokers, government workers, insurance agents -- nowadays the members of almost every other profession enjoy smoke-free workplaces. Why should restaurateurs be exempt?

Times have changed. The number of Americans who smoke today is half the total of four decades ago. California, with 12 percent of the nation's population, has succeeded for seven years with a strict 100-percent restaurant smoking ban that includes bars.

Alcoholic beverage manufactures have changed, too. They've sacrificed for safety's sake and promoted responsible drinking campaigns. The result: Drunk-driving deaths have plunged for the last 10 years.

Smoking eventually will be banned in all workplaces in America. The only question is when? It is time for the restaurant industry to end its financial and philosophical ties to the tobacco industry and ban smoking in workplaces now. Only those who choose to smoke should be subject to its deadly consequences.

©2002 Lebhar-Friedman, Inc.