County line pushes village to smoking ban-wagon

Aug. 3, 2006
TOM JOHNSTON

Like a cigarette burning down to the butt, the clock is ticking for local officials to enact their own policies regulating smoking in public places.

Barrington plans to hold public hearings in September, so the Village Board can draft and implement a local smoking ordinance.

"One way or the other, we will have a smoking ordinance by the end of the year," Village President Karen Darch said.

The impetus for Barrington is a March 15, 2007 deadline, when Cook County's smoking ordinance will take effect in municipalities and unincorporated areas that don't have their own smoking laws.

Stricter than Chicago's regulations, the Cook County ordinance basically bans smoking in all public places, offering no exemptions to bars and restaurants.

Barrington officials are concerned that having smoking regulations for the Cook County portion of the village, but not for the Lake County portion, could create an uneven playing field for restaurants and bars.

"We certainly don't want to put our businesses at a disadvantage," Darch said.

The same sort of thinking prompted the mayors of Arlington Heights, Palatine, Schaumburg, Hoffman Estates and Rolling Meadows to propose a uniform smoking ban for their towns.

Arvind Goyal, chairman of Rolling Meadows' tobacco information and prevention committee, said a regionwide ordinance ensures that the agreeing villages will not compete with one another, and it might discourage people from going to great lengths to smoke while dining out or having a beer.

"By doing a regionwide ordinance, you don't have that fear," Goyal said. "If people have to drive 20 miles to find a town that allows them to smoke, they won't do it."

If there is support for the ordinance, each town would effectively ban smoking in most businesses by Jan. 2, 2007. The ordinance was introduced last week in Schaumburg.

The mayors say they support the smoking restrictions outlined in a draft of Schaumburg's Clean Indoor Air Ordinance. The draft ordinance, released last week, establishes "the right of non-smokers to breath smoke-free air which shall have priority over the desire to smoke."

The ordinance would ban smoking in most enclosed or semi-enclosed public places -- including bars and restaurants -- or within 15 feet of any entrance. It would exempt private residences, some tobacco shops, hotel rooms and nursing home rooms.

"If it becomes a go, it will be a model for the United States," Goyal said.

Arlington Heights Village President Arlene Mulder said the Village Board has considered smoking bans three times over the past 15 years; the biggest counterargument has been that smokers would take their business to neighboring towns.

"Rather than pit one community against another, we decided we would approach this on a regional basis," Mulder said.

Darch said it's especially pleasing to see cooperation from Schaumburg, which possesses a large share of the area's restaurant and bar market.

Knowing that smoking policies are coming down the pike, a fair shake is all some business owners want.

Mark Green, a co-owner of Wool Street Bar & Grill in downtown Barrington, is one of them. He said smokers make up a significant portion of his clientele. He's concerned they would simply saunter a few blocks north into Lake County if they still have the option of smoking there.

"If I'm a victim of the Cook County ban south of Lake-Cook Road, and the other side of the street (Lake County) is not, I might gain some non-smoking customers, but I may lose my smoking customers," he said.

To prepare for Barrington's upcoming hearings, Green plans to poll his patrons. He said his survey will ask two basic questions:

1.) Would you support or oppose a smoking ban?

2.) If there were a smoking ban, would you come to the bar more or less often?

"The second question, to proprietors, is the question," Green said. "If it comes down to where 55 percent of the respondents say they would come more often, then so be it. If 20 percent say they would come more often but 80 percent say they would come less often, then I've got a problem."

South Barrington Village President Frank Munao said the village has not yet, but will eventually, delve into the issue and come up with its own local ordinance.

"It's something we're going to have to do in conjunction with the businesses in the area, particularly the restaurants," Munao said, explaining that it might be possible to create an ordinance that protects business owners and non-smokers.

Munao admitted that he was not aware of the proposed deal among the five neighboring mayors, but he said South Barrington would likely not stray very far from what neighboring communities do to address smoking in public places.

"We'll probably mold ourselves into what they're doing," he said.
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Barrington to look closely at economics of smoking

BY TOM JOHNSTON
STAFF WRITER
Feb. 9, 2006

Chicago officials in January enacted a law banning smoking in the city's restaurants, bars and other public places. Their suburban counterparts, including those in Barrington, have started to consider whether to pass similar laws.

Barrington officials will have to consider the potential economic impact a smoking ban could have on their campaign to revitalize the downtown area, which is just beginning to pick up momentum.

Although a decades-old vision, it's an effort that within the last two years has produced popular classic car shows and a retail and luxury condo development in downtown Barrington, a new shopping center, and negotiations for additional properties to redevelop, as well as more parking.

Village President Karen Darch said officials haven't had an in-depth discussion of a smoking ban, but the impact on local businesses will be part of the conversation. The first step will be polling local businesses owners to get their opinions, she said.

"We certainly don't want to do things that hamper the economic redevelopment that we're doing," Darch said. "But on other hand, I don't really know what the (business owners') expectations or desires are."

Barrington officials are currently in the process of answering a survey on smoking sent out by the Metropolitan Mayors Caucus and the Northwest Municipal Conference, which represents 46 municipalities, including Barrington, and four townships in the north and northwest suburbs.

The survey went out two weeks ago and results are expected to be presented at NMC's Feb. 8 board meeting, its executive director, Mark Fowler, said, adding that the purpose is to gauge member communities' preferences on smoking bans.

Preferences will likely range from following the recently passed Illinois law, which allows individual governments to make their own choices, to supporting the implementation of a statewide ban.

"A lot of groups and politicians are looking for different ways to make something like this palatable," Fowler said.

Fowler said the initial sense is that NMC communities are all over the map in terms of how they view smoking bans. In Elk Grove, the extreme example, officials are considering outlawing completely the sale of tobacco, let alone a smoking ban in restaurants in bars. Meanwhile, Des Plaines officials recently decided against the implementation of a smoking ban in their village.

"You have some communities willing to jump out and take the lead," Fowler said. "But other communities are worried about enacting a ban when their neighbors don't have one. The fear is they will be driving out their businesses."

Darch said trustees are still filling their surveys out, but she expects the Village Board to discuss the possibility of supporting a regional ban, "the issue being that it's probably better to look at a smoking ban comprehensively so one town is not at a competitive disadvantage with its neighbors."

The Wool Street Grill & Sports Bar, which has enjoyed significant success since it opened last year, is indicative of the village's economic redevelopment.

Co-owner Mark Green said a ban on smoking in his establishment, which only allows smoking in the bar but offers the same menu and amenities in two separate non-smoking dining areas, would logically drive out a good portion of his customers, especially if they could smoke at a bar in a neighboring town.

That's not the type of risk Green would like to take, and he doesn't think it's one Barrington can afford to take.

"We're not in a situation in Barrington where we can afford additional deterrents, at least in my case, to the retail traffic we get," Green said.

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New bill would create statewide ban on smoking

February 8, 2006
By Crystal Lindell - Springfield Bureau

SPRINGFIELD - A House committee approved legislation Tuesday that would expand the state's smoking ban to include bars and bowling alleys.

Despite concerns the proposal would hurt businesses by turning away smokers, the committee voted 6-4 in favor of the measure.

“Whether you work as an executive at a Fortune 500 company or you work on a wait staff at a local pub, your right to breathe smoke-free air would be protected by this bill,” said state Rep. Annazette Collins, D-Chicago, the proposal's sponsor.

The existing law, which bans smoking in all indoor areas serving the public, makes exceptions for bowling alleys and bars. However, the new proposal would make it necessary for them to ban smoking entirely within two years. The ban would also prohibit people from smoking within 15 feet of the entrance to any public place.

Tobacco shops would be the only remaining exception in the new smoking ban.

A law allowing municipalities to ban smoking in bars and bowling alleys was approved during the last session and has been in effect since Jan. 1. Legislation allowing counties the same power is currently under debate in the Illinois Senate.

Since local smoking bans have been allowed, Springfield, Deerfield and Chicago have approved bans. Forty other communities, including DeKalb, Normal, Bloomington, and Carbondale, are considering them.

Critics said there has not been time for that legislation to run its course in local communities.

“This bill would pull the rug out from under them, right in the middle of the process,” said Steve Riedl, spokesman for the Illinois Licensed Beverage Association.

Proponents of the state-wide ban said that it would make it easier for businesses and communities to be smoke-free if the whole state had the same rules.

“There are several communities in my area, because we're suburban Chicago, that have said we really would rather have a state-wide ban, it would be easier than doing it one city by one city by one city,” said state Rep. Elizabeth Coulson, R-Glenview.

Todd Maisch, spokesman for the Illinois Chamber of Commerce, said the decision should be left to local areas and the proposal to ban smoking everywhere goes too far.

“We very much suspect that the real agenda is to more or less punish smokers and make it as hard as possible for them to smoke as opposed to really addressing the issue of second-hand smoke,” Maisch said.

He said ventilation systems and separate smoking areas are more practical.

In Illinois about 3,000 people each year die from second-hand smoke related illness, said Dr. Ermilo Barrera, American Cancer Society president.

Ten states, including New York, Massachusetts, Washington, Vermont and California already are smoke-free.

The legislation is House Bill 4338.
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