Posted on 07/03/2003 6:34:46 PM PDT by Just another Joe
Conflicting predictions - either a boon or bust in restaurant business foreshadow the city's smoking ban
By Dan Mayfield
Tribune Reporter
Five months ago, Jeness Chavez quit her job tending bar at Isleta Casino.
"I couldn't take the smoke anymore," Chavez said. "I was so sick, I thought I was pregnant."
Based largely on the smoke, Chavez, who is in her 20s, took a job at ReBar, a nonsmoking restaurant/bar in the university area.
But starting tomorrow, she can work at any restaurant within the Albuquerque city limits she wants.
As of Thursday, smoking is banned inside virtually all public places in Albuquerque - from restaurants to private businesses.
Rules that allowed people to smoke in private offices? Gone. Separate break rooms for smokers? Not anymore.
But smoke Õem if you've got Õem in stand-alone bars - they're exempt.
The ordinance is an update of the city's 1989 Clean Indoor Air Act, which established smoking and nonsmoking sections in restaurants.
"I think people are going to find it refreshing," said Cynthia Serna, director of New Mexicans Concerned About Tobacco. "I think they will begin to notice the difference right away."
But others aren't enthusiastic.
"It's still a wait and see. The proof is in the enactment," said Carol Wight, director of the New Mexico Restaurant Association, who predicts restaurants already smarting from a sluggish economy will be pummeled by the ban.
"Mostly from independent business, I'm hearing horror stories," Wight said. "Business is already down 30 percent. They can't take another hit."
GETTING THE WORD OUT
After working for almost two years to get the ordinance passed, Serna said, her group is now focusing on making sure businesses and their customers know about it.
Look for bus panels and listen for radio ads, paid for by anti-tobacco groups and the New Mexico Department of Health, encouraging people to go out to eat - but not to smoke while they do it.
The groups together have spent about $50,000 on ads and pamphlets.
"We know there's going to be some confusion out there, and we're doing everything we can to educate the public," Cheryl Ferguson, media coordinator for Multicultural Advocates for Social Change on Tobacco, said.
"We know there will be the obligatory grouchy smoker in Albuquerque."
The pamphlets explain the dangers of secondhand smoke and where the law applies.
The New Mexico Restaurant Association, in its monthly magazine Southwestern Restaurateur, also published a primer on the law targeted at restaurant owners.
Even for those who followed debate over the law, there was room for confusion. It took the City Council eight meetings and two vetoes by Mayor Martin Chavez to arrive at the final legislation, which Chavez signed into law April 4.
RESTAURANT/BARS
One provision in the law is still causing controversy.
While it's clear stand-alone bars may continue to allow smoking, restaurant/bars have one year from Thursday to either ban smoking or cordon off the bar with a floor-to-ceiling wall and a separate heating and cooling system.
"What am I going to do? Now we have to remodel to comply with it." said Maria Constantine, owner of Mykonos Caf‚. "We'd lose the atmosphere. It would be a box within a box."
Constantine has a year to make her decision, but she already knows what the outcome will be: Esthetics will prevail over any loss of business.
Mykonos - for one month - went smoke-free last year. The business tanked. Constantine said she lost 70 percent of her bar business and 20 percent overall.
"They didn't come in," she said.
Losing business is bad, she said, but spending money to remodel the restaurant could be worse.
A new heating-ventilation-air conditioning system can cost more than $8,000 installed, said Tom Coleman of Total Service Co. Inc., which installs such systems.
Other restaurant owners say their situation is ambiguous.
"It sounds like we're in compliance," said Andy Lynch, director of operations for Scalo Northern Italian Grill. "I'm just going to assume, with a smoke-free dining room and a smoking bar, if somebody wants to complain, we'll hear about it."
Scalo runs a fine line. Its restrooms are near its bar, where it allows smoking - but not necessarily in the bar.
"It would be a violation to make people go through a smoking area to get to a lobby, waiting area or restroom," said Mark Shoesmith, an assistant city attorney who helped write the ordinance.
Decisions on who must remodel and who can allow smoking after next year will be determined on a case-by-case basis by the city building inspector, Shoesmith said.
"How subjective is that?" Wight said. "(Restaurant owners) want to follow the law, but if you can't tell them what the wrong thing is, what is it?"
CRIME AND PUNISHMENT
"My big questions are based on enforcement," Councilor Tina Cummins said. "When and how. Say a patron lights up, who are you going to call? Is it APD? Is it fire? Is it Environmental Health?"
All of the above, Shoesmith said.
"There's not going to be a smoking squad running around," he said. Instead Albuquerque police officers and firefighters can write citations - if they witness the violation.
"If a waiter says you have to put it out and you don't, you can be cited," Shoesmith said. "It's a violation. It always has been."
If a smoker - or a business - violates the law, fines start at $100 for first-time offenders and go up to $500. Businesses violate the law by allowing smoking.
Foes and advocates alike will be watching the city's gross receipts reports to measure the impact of the ban.
Both sides have their predictions: Restaurateurs expect business to drop as smokers eat in Rio Rancho, Los Ranchos de Albuquerque or at casinos where they can light up; anti-smoking groups predict more nonsmokers will go out to eat and shop more often.
"We'll be watching," Ferguson said.
While Wight countered, "Maybe from this, I'll have something to take back to the council."
WHERE YOU CAN'T
Albuquerque's new Clean Indoor Air law goes into effect Thursday. The new law bans smoking in:
Public buildings, malls, offices, stores, restaurants, banks, sports arenas, aquariums, galleries, libraries, airports, museums, theaters, lecture halls, health establishments, waiting rooms, hallways, polling places, the Albuquerque Convention Center and any place under control of the city, which includes the Albuquerque Biological Park.
Also, smokers can't light up anyplace smoke may be drawn into a building, such as near an air duct or window.
WHERE YOU CAN
There will still be places smokers can light up:
Patios at restaurants, provided smoke does not enter the restaurant, and workers or customers don't have to walk through the smoke; stand-alone bars; parts of bowling alley concourses; 30 percent of the floor area in bingo halls; private clubs; retail tobacco stores; parts of the Albuquerque Convention Center, if rented for private functions; certain exempt parts of airports; and private rooms and meeting halls in hotels and motels.
Smokers may still light up in the bar area of a restaurant, but patrons have to be 21 to enter. Restaurant/bars have until July 3, 2004, to either enclose the bar - and install a new heating and air-conditioning system - or go smoke-free.
How many times are we going to hear this?
Lies, more lies, and damn lies!
This is the biggest lie of all!
It's a damn good thing I am never in arm's reach of these bold faced liars, because "I" would be in PRISON for MURDER!
Sure takes a strong stomach to read this chit, Joe.....
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I don't really want to hear this.
Too bad. I could take target practice at some of the smokers. :-)
They are CORRECT.
anti-smoking groups predict more nonsmokers will go out to eat and shop more often.
They have no idea what they are talking about.
6 months afetr the Delaware ban went into effect one owner told me his food business was up about 5%, but that no way made up for the 40% decline in his bar business. He went from live entertainment 3 nights a week to just one night, he couldn't justify the cost of the bands when there weren't enough people coming in to cover the cost of even being open.
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