Smoked Out
HAYDEN — Three Verizon co-workers lit up at Rustlers Roost last week, their Marlboros creating hazy spirals in the dim, six-table alcove that forms the restaurant’s smoking section.
The women often patronize the Hayden eatery on their lunch break, as much for the smoking section as for the country breakfast specials that are served until 3 p.m.
“I won’t go into any restaurant that doesn’t allow smoking,” said one of the women, a smoker since age 16.
Beginning July 1, however, a cigarette with a meal will no longer be an option at Rustlers Roost, or in any other Idaho restaurant for that matter. Smokers will have to take their puffs in the parking lot.
Idaho will become the ninth state in the nation to ban smoking in restaurants.Massachusetts will follow a few days later with a similar ban. During the last decade, anti-smoking groups have been extremely effective in passing clean-air ordinances, and restaurants have been one of their target battlefields.
Nearly 170 communities around the nation have local laws requiring smoke-free restaurants, according to Americans for Nonsmokers’ Rights, an organization based in Berkeley, Calif. In Washington state, where the Legislature defeated a ban on smoking in restaurants this year, backers are trying to gather the nearly 200,000 signatures needed to put a similar measure before voters this fall.
The Idaho law exempts from the smoking ban bars, bowling alleys and private clubs, but applies to restaurant-bar combinations during the hours when minors are allowed in the building. Smokers who violate the law can be fined $50.
Even a few years ago, the ban would have been unthinkable in Idaho, said Rep. Jim Clark, a Hayden Republican and non-smoker who argued that restaurants should be able to set their own smoking policies.
“The Legislature used to be so conservative when it came to individual rights and property rights,” said Clark. “This year, the smoking ban just had a lot of inertia.”
Waitresses testified about the health risks of second-hand smoke, and the bill’s sponsor had a son who died from lung cancer. The Coalition for Healthy Idaho spent $60,000 on a poll of 1,500 state residents. Eighty percent favored a ban on smoking in restaurants.
The Idaho Lodging & Restaurant Association has fought anti-smoking legislation for more than 20 years, but won’t try to overturn the law, said Mike Fitzgerald, the association’s vice president.
“There are still a lot of customers, good customers, who smoke,” said Fitzgerald, a restaurant owner in Boise. “Having government come in and dictate what we can and can’t do is a bit of an infringement.”
But the association is ceding this fight, he said. “We have other, more important battles.”
Even restaurant owners opposing the ban appear resigned.
“We’ve always had a smoking section. Up until now, we believed in choice,” said Woody McEvers, who owns the Rustlers Roost. He thinks the six smoking tables helped sales, particularly in recent years, as other restaurants went smoke-free.
McEvers, however, also sees practical advantages to operating a non-smoking restaurant: No more cigarette burns on the vinyl upholstery, and faster customer turnaround.
“Nothing against smokers,” he said, “but they tend to linger over their coffee and cigarettes.”
Restaurants have been at the forefront of the battle over smoking since the 1970s, when the first laws requiring separate seating sections for smokers and non-smokers were proposed. California and Utah became the first two states to outlaw smoking in restaurants in 1994.
In California, opponents of the measure added a ban on smoking in bars as a “poison pill,” said Bronson Fricks, associate director of Americans for Nonsmokers’ Rights. They thought it would kill the bill, and were surprised when it passed. The ban on lighting up in bars was challenged 18 times in court, and as a result, it didn’t take effect in California until 1998, according to Fricks.
Restaurant and bar owners often worry that smoking bans will result in lost sales, he said. But a recent study in New York City showed that food and beverage sales there increased nearly 9 percent a year after implementation of a controversial law making restaurants and bars smoke-free. The industry also added about 10,000 jobs, and levels of cotinine, a byproduct of tobacco smoke, decreased by 85 percent in nonsmoking restaurant and bar employees. The study was a joint effort of the city’s health and finance departments.
Nationally, the percentage of the adult population that smokes has been declining since 1965, when 42 percent of U.S. adults lit up on a regular basis. About 21 percent of Idaho’s adult population smokes, compared with a national average of 22 percent.
At the Iron Horse in Coeur d’Alene, a 33-year-old family eatery with a smoker-friendly reputation, owner Tom Robb has noticed the decline.
About 80 percent of the Iron Horse’s restaurant customers are now non-smokers, according to waitress estimates. Summer tourists, in particular, ask about the Iron Horse’s smoking policy, and leave if they detect cigarette fumes, Robb said.
Robb said he’s optimistic about the new law. His only concern is the section that stipulates bars must be smoke-free if they adjoin restaurants. The Iron Horse’s bar is in a separate room with its own outside entrance, but bar and restaurant customers both use the hallway that leads to the restrooms, which could be a problem.
“Our business is so competitive,” Robb said. “They’ve got to make sure this isn’t a piece of legislation that hurts some bars and helps others.”
The parts of the law referring to restaurant-bar combinations are the most contentious sections, said Fitzgerald, the Idaho Lodging & Restaurant Association’s vice president.
At the Fort Grounds Tavern, a neighborhood pub in Coeur d’Alene, a partial wall separates smokers at the bar from a restaurant where families with kids come for burgers and sandwiches. Food sales generate about half of the tavern’s receipts, said owner Mike Gray.
Gray doesn’t want to lose that business, but his options are limited. He can install a full wall, and seal off the bar completely from the restaurant, but that would require a new outside entrance to the historic brick building. Or, he could make the bar smoke-free during the hours that minors are allowed in the restaurant.
“I have to decide pretty soon, but I’m a procrastinator,” Gray said last week.
He’s firmly against the smoking ban. “The customers can to decide whether or not they want to come in or not,” he said. “That’s the American way.”
Cindy Osborne shares his views. She’s the general manager at the Rainbow Inn Resort, a combination restaurant-bar on Hauser Lake. On a recent morning, two neighborhood dogs lounged near the door. It’s not unusual to see kids’ fishing poles or bikes propped against the wall either.
“We pride ourselves on being a place that’s about family, food and fun,” Osborne said.
Neighborhood kids can play pool or video games in the bar until 10 p.m. The bartenders police the patrons’ language, to keep it suitable for young ears, Osborne said. And the Rainbow’s restrooms are at the far end of the building, accessible only by walking through the bar.
“This isn’t a place where people raise hell,” she said. “I think it should be the parents’ decision if they want to bring their kids in. What’s happening to our rights?”
Designating smoke-free hours has actually helped business at Moontime, a restaurant-bar in Coeur d’Alene, said general manager Chris Taylor. Four years ago, Moontime’s owners implemented “smokeless Mondays,” and noticed that the clientele doubled that day. The popularity prompted to the restaurant’s current policy, which is no smoking until 9 p.m., “when everyone lights up,” Taylor said.
After July 1, the restaurant will probably become non-smoking until 10 p.m., when minors would have to leave the premises, he said.
Down the Street Café in Coeur d’Alene became smoke-free this spring, in anticipation of the new law.
“We’d been planning to do it for sometime,” said co-owner Kathy Dickerson. “When they changed the law, it actually worked out very well for us.”
She and business partner Jim Catalano considered a non-smoking restaurant when they opened 13 years ago, but weren’t sure if they could run an 80-seat diner without catering to smokers. The separate smoking and non-smoking sections never worked out very well, despite an air-filtration system, Dickerson said. Even the waitresses who smoked complained about the haze.
The café shut down for four days while the staff cleaned and deodorized the building. Customer reaction has been positive, Dickerson said.
“Our same people still come in,” she said. “And now our non-smoking customers are bringing their friends.”
Sue Ann Reese, coordinator for the Coalition for Healthy Idaho who worked on this year’s legislation, said she’d like to see the state’s bars and bowling alleys become smoke-free in the future.
“If it had been my choice, we’d be 100 percent smoke-free now,” she said, “but there wasn’t support for it.”
While 80 percent of the Idaho residents polled wanted smoke-free restaurants, only 17 percent thought the bars should be smoke-free, Reese said. “It was a hard-core ‘no.’ “