Restaurant Related News

New Jersey, Maryland Latest to Try Snuffing Out Smoking

10,000 new jobs added to city's hospitality industry

By: Paul Frumkin
Source: Nation's Restaurant News
Published: February 24, 2003

With workplace smoking bans being enacted or looming in more major municipalities and states, the snowballing trend towards legal nullification of restaurants' "accommodation" option now has rolled into in New Jersey and Maryland.

In the wake of recent prohibitions on smoking and restaurants in the cities of New York, Dallas and Boston, lawmakers in New Jersey and Maryland are joining New York state counterparts in seeking to move their jurisdictions into the smoke-free ranks by year-end. Those states would join California, Maine, Utah, Vermont, Florida and Delaware and that column, whose municipal counterparts grew last year to include Honolulu; El Paso, Texas; Tempe, Ariz; and Nassau County, N.Y.

Meanwhile, lawmakers in Atlanta, Denver, Chicago and Albuquerque, N.M., as well as in New York's Westchester and Suffolk counties are considering similar smoking bans.

Modeled after New York City's sweeping ordinance, the proposed New Jersey bill moved through the state Assembly's environmental committee this month, buoying smoke-ban proponents' hopes for further progress. The New Jersey "Clean Indoor Air Act", which seeks to outlaw smoking in most enclosed establishments, including all restaurants, bars and casinos throughout the state, is the first bill of its kind to make it out of committee in the Trenton statehouse.

In another parallel with New York, the New Jersey Restaurant Association opposes the measure because it is not an across-the-board ban on smoking in all enclosed workplaces. The restaurant associations of both states favor all industry smoking bans as a way to level competitive imbalances and preventing smoke-ban proponents from targeting restaurants. The NYSRA opposes New York City's ban on the grounds that its various exemptions discriminate against restaurants.

In Maryland, twin bills modeled after Delaware's anti-smoking law has been introduced in this state Senate and House of Delegates. According to Melvin Thompson, vice president of government affairs for that Restaurant Association of Maryland, the proposed "Clean Indoor Air Act" would eliminate smoking in restaurants and bars while sparing private clubs. Currently, Maryland law allows smoking in the bar areas of restaurants.

While the restaurant association in Maryland has come out in opposition of the ban, Thompson said he doesn't believe the measure has much support among state lawmakers and likely would languish in committee.

Deborah Dowdell, Executive Vice President of the New Jersey Restaurant Association, said it would not opposed a bill that banned smoking across the board -- one that provided "a level playing field" for all restaurateurs.

However, the New Jersey bill, like the New York measure, allows for limited exceptions or "carve outs", such as in VFW halls, private clubs on golf courses and owner operated bars. "We still have problems with the proposed law", Dowdell said.

If the bill worked to be passed in its present form, New Jersey would become the seventh state to outlaw smoking in the indoor workplaces. Currently, California, Maine, Utah, Vermont, Florida and Delaware have enacted comprehensive smoking prohibitions.

Meanwhile, New York state lawmakers are putting the finishing touches on a workplace smoking ban that is expected to be introduced in Albany later this year, according to Melissa Fleischut, Director of Government Affairs for the NYSRA. the association took a "historic step" a few weeks ago when it I declared that it would not oppose a comprehensive, statewide workplace smoking ban.

Vermont lawmakers, meanwhile, are looking to close one of the state's last smoking loopholes -- operations with cabaret licenses, according to Kathy Sweeten, President of the Vermont Lodging and Restaurant Association. The state has prohibited smoking in restaurants since 1995.

Several legislators in Delaware are having second thoughts about their smoke ban, however. A recent bill introduced into the state's House of Representatives is seeking to modify last year's ruling by exempting casinos and taprooms. The law went into effect in last November.

The drive to snuff out smoking in the workplace also has been gaining momentum in major cities and counties around the nation. In January the Dallas City Council prohibited smoking in restaurants and other retail and service establishments. The measure spares -- at least for the time been -- standalone bars and pool halls.

In December that Boston Public Health Commission declared it was the illegal to smoke in any establishments selling food or drink. Not long afterward, the New York City Council presented Mayor Michael Bloomberg with a late holiday gift when it passed his wide-ranging anti-smoking measure. That ban is scheduled to take effect March 30.

The nationwide proliferation of smoke bans, which now extend from Honolulu to Long Island, N.Y., have grown to massive numerical proportions. In Massachusetts alone an estimated 70 cities and towns have passed smoking bans, according to Peter Christie, President and Chief Executive of the Massachusetts Restaurant Association.

Former California Restaurant Association spokesman Paul McIntyre, who now is president of Kids Involuntarily Inhaling Secondhand Smoke, or KIISS, a nonprofit group based in Roseville, Calif., observed that smoke ban proponents "are certainly on a roll now, and we don't expect to stop. What we're seeing is somewhat of a domino effect".

Carrie Leishman, executive director of the Delaware Restaurant Association, agreed, saying that Delaware's statewide smoking ban helped to give momentum to smoking opponents on the East Coast. The state's ban "came as something of a surprise to people", she said. "Delaware is such a conservative state".

McIntyre, who served for 14 years as public affairs representative with the CRA, said that as of the year and a half ago only 14 percent of the U.S. population was covered by total or partial smoking bans. But today "at least 25 percent is covered, without even factoring in the new measures in Boston or Dallas", he said. "The percentage of the U.S. population covered by smoke-free-workplace regulation has risen by more than 60 percent in 18 months".

McIntyre said it was "significant that the four cornerstone tourist markets of the country -- California, Florida, Hawaii and New York City -- are smoke-free". Four of Hawaii's five counties have banned smoking. He also predicted that "New York State will go smoke-free this year".

Meanwhile, political leaders in New Jersey anticipate that the state Legislature will pass a smoke ban. Assembly Majority Leader Joseph J. Roberts Jr., D-Camden, told the Philadelphia Inquirer that he expects the bill to pass the New Jersey Legislature in some form this year. Roberts, who owns two restaurants -- one of which is smoke-free -- and a club in Cape May County, said, "It's long overdue that New Jersey addresses the issue".

However, Dale Florio, a lobbyist with the Trenton, N.J.-based Princeton Public Affairs Group, which represents the New Jersey Restaurant Association and Philip Morris Cos. Inc., called the measure "draconian. It's a sweeping bill, and it puts a smoker in the closet of his or her home. This social engineers in New Jersey are hard at work to determine what's good and what's not good. We're hopeful that any bill that does pass will have accommodations for everyone".

NJRA executives also are voicing concerns over how a smoking ban would impact business in the foodservice and hospitality industries -- particularly if the law is selective. John Byrne, President of the NJRA and owner of La Campagne, a French fine-dining restaurant in Cherry Hill, N.J., said he doesn't want restaurants and bars "to be singled out. If there is going to be a ban on smoking, it should be banned statewide. There should be a level playing field".

Byrne, who has operated La Campagne as a non-smoking restaurant for three years, said that policy hasn't hurt his business. Nonetheless, he maintained, the decision "should be an individual preference".

The NJRA's Dowdell said she worried that as the bill moves through the Legislature, compromises would have to be made. "Right now the bill does include casinos [in Atlantic City]", she said. "But I can see casinos carving themselves out [through lobbying for an exemption]. Private clubs have already been carved out. And that's a primary concern. Everybody needs to be treated the same".

Dowdell also maintained that there is no need for new legislation in the state. "The biggest trend I've seen over the years is the growth in the number of smoke-free restaurants", she said. "And the rest are shrinking their smoking sections. I see it happening without the need for a new law. We think the marketplace is working".

About 35 percent of New Jersey's restaurants already are smoke free, Dowdell estimated.