Since Mr. Reynolds is so fond of throwing the "misinformation" claim in the face of smokers' rights advocates, perhaps we should examine this claim of his own a bit more closely.
Patrick Reynolds: King of Misinformation
On March 3rd, 2007, SmokersClub spokesman Gary Nolan faced off against Patrick Reynolds on MSNBC. This was not the first time the two have met and previous confrontations were notable for Reynolds' accusation that Gary was spreading "misinfomation".
On March 3rd the accusation was stated again, although it was somewhat cut off by the host. This time however Mr. Reynolds followed it up with the statement that "16 states have now gone smokefree in all bars and restaurants."
Since Mr. Reynolds is so fond of throwing the "misinformation" claim in the face of smokers' rights advocates, perhaps we should examine this claim of his own a bit more closely. If we go to Americans for Nonsmokers Rights' webpage at
we see a map of smoke ban laws and below it we see a listing of details. Those details indicate that we do indeed have 14 states with laws on the books currently banning smoking in bars and two more with laws due to take effect within the next two years.
BUT... as they say, the devil is indeed in the details!
California is one of the states listed as having 100% smokefree bars despite the fact that its law allows for bars with 5 or fewer employees to retain free-choice. California was also recently the subject of a peer-reviewed study by an antismoking group and was castigated when violations were found in almost 50% of the establishments studied. Connecticut has a similar "less than five employees" exception, although it's not clear if a "bar" is considered a "workplace" in this particular corner of Antismoking World.
New York is also listed as having 100% smokefree bars... again despite the fact that a sizeable but unknown number of bars have been given hardship waivers. In Suffolk County a judge ruled that bar staff cannot be coerced to act as unpaid and untrained enforcers of the ban law so it has now become quite common for bars to simply ignore the fact that their customers are smoking. As one New Yorker commented on the Tonowando News website: "Did they lift the ban on smoking in area bars? Every bar I visit, they have plastic cups with water and cigarette butts in them. They must have a ban on ashtrays."
Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and Colorado allow smoking in bars if 50% or more of their revenue comes from tobacco products. Colorado also allows bar/restaurant smoking at its international airport facilities. In New Jersey a bar needs only to show that 15% of its revenue comes from tobacco products: there's no tally I could find of how many NJ bars have managed to survive by squeezing through on this life raft.
Hawaii allows smoking in bars as long as they don't have more than one wall under their "roof or overhang." Given the Hawaiin climate I would imagine that such "strip bars" may have become more common since their ban.
So in sum, seven of the fourteen states with current bans on smoking in bars have varying levels of exceptions and loopholes that make the claim of smokefree in "all bars and restaurants" fairly questionable. Add into that the likelyhood of widespread noncompliance in all fourteen (After all, if California, the hotbed and bastion of Antismokerdom, sports a 50% violation rate, what are the chances that there's really full compliance ANYwhere?) and we see that Mr. Reynolds, he who loves to point the finger at us for "misinforming the public," seems to be quite comfortable with spouting his own brand of misinformation.
 | March 3, 2007
MSNBC
Smoking On College Campus Debate between Gary Nolan, United States Regional Director of The Smoker's Club, Inc., and Patrick Reynolds. |
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