Cincinnati Update
Total smoking ban rejected by city
April 14, 2005
By Kevin Osborne
Post staff reporter
Ending nearly 10 months of debate, Cincinnati officials extinguished a proposal Wednesday that would have completely banned smoking in public indoor spaces throughout the city.
City Council voted 6-3 to reject a total smoking ban.
The ban could harm local businesses like restaurants and bars because some customers would decide to frequent Northern Kentucky establishments where smoking is permitted, opponents said.
"I like the idea of a complete ban, but it needs to be done on a regional approach so our businesses don't end up bearing the full impact," said Council Member David Pepper.
Joining Pepper in opposing the total ban were John Cranley, David Crowley, Chris Monzel, Sam Malone and Jim Tarbell.
Supporters were Laketa Cole, Alicia Reece and Christopher Smitherman.
Cincinnati should be the pacesetter for the region and impose a total ban to protect workers in restaurants and bars who are exposed to second-hand smoke, Smitherman said.
"People first, business second," he said.
After the total ban was defeated, City Council voted 8-1 to approve a partial ban, proposed by Crowley as a compromise. That essentially codifies existing restrictions, which were passed by the city's Board of Health in the mid-1980s but didn't have the force of law due to recent court rulings.
Under the compromise, smoking is prohibited in most public indoor spaces like retail stores, banks, offices, elevators, restrooms, public transportation, libraries, museums and health care facilities.
But some exceptions are allowed if a designated smoking area is provided, which is what most restaurants do.
No business is permitted to allow smoking everywhere except bars and bowling alleys. Bowling alleys, though, must be smoke-free on weekends, from opening until 5 p.m. unless they have an exclusively adult clientele.
"Most places already are smoke-free," said Crowley, an ex-smoker whose family owns a Mount Adams pub. "What we're talking about is a small segment of our economic community - bars and restaurants - and dealing with them differently. They would have an undue impact."
The partial ban imposes signage requirements on businesses, and requires every employer to have a written smoking policy that is given to workers.
People caught violating the ban would face fines and even jail time.
First-time offenders would be charged with minor misdemeanors, each punishable by a $150 fine. Repeat offenders could be charged with a third-degree misdemeanor and face up to a $500 fine and 60 days in jail.
The city's Health Department will enforce the law.
Smitherman was the sole vote against the partial ban, saying it didn't go far enough.
"I have no interest in a compromise," he said.
Reece, who proposed the total ban, said some restrictions were better than none.
"I don't see it as the progressive step that we need to take," she said. But she predicted: "I don't think today is the final end of this issue."
The Clean Indoor Air Coalition, which has pushed for a total ban for the past year, might try a citizen-led petition drive to collect enough signatures and force the issue on the ballot.
Also, the coalition and similar groups around Ohio are working behind-the-scenes to place a statewide ban before voters in about 18 months.
The Ohio Legislature currently is considering a bill that would enact restrictions similar to those contained in Cincinnati's partial ban.
Numerous cities nationwide have passed total smoking bans including Columbus, Dallas, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Toledo and Lexington, Ky.
Before City Council's vote, a few dozen people spoke about the ban during a public forum, many of them favoring a total ban.
"Smokers are the minority," said resident Suzanne Lucas, a ban supporter. "We know now that exposure to second-hand smoke is just as dangerous, just as unhealthy, as smoking."
Cassandra Johnson, a jazz vocalist who performs in local bars, said, "I hate the fact that I have to subject myself to hazardous chemicals and carcinogens to do what I enjoy."
Other speakers, however, said the decision to go smoke-free should remain with business owners. If customers dislike smoking, they can choose to spend their dollars elsewhere, they said.
"Our clientele prefers to smoke," said Tom Ford, owner of Murphy's Pub in Clifton and head of the Greater Cincinnati Hospitality Coalition. "Our employees have made their choice, our customers have made their choice."
After a smoking ban was passed in Toledo, bars lost about 35 percent of their business, opponents said. Local owners said they couldn't handle that magnitude of a hit in a sluggish economy.
"We cannot afford to lose them," said Dean Gregory, whose family owns the Montgomery Inn Boat House restaurant.
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City Council Sticks With Rules, Re: Smoking Ban
4/13/2005
Cincinnati city council has decided to stick with rules already in place when it comes to a smoking ban within city limits.
That means the guidelines established by the city's board of health 20-years ago are now law.
Which means smoking is banned in public places but still allowed in restaurants, bars and bowling alleys.
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Debate on smoking ban smolders in Cincinnati
January 10, 2005
By Matt Leingang
The recent death of Cincinnati's health commissioner has stalled the city's smoking ban debate, but the issue isn't going away.
The city Health Department, which would be in charge of enforcing such a ban, is still grieving and regrouping since the Dec. 19 death of Malcolm Adcock, said Vice Mayor Alicia Reece.
As a result, a Jan. 18 public hearing on the issue in front of City Council's health and small business committee has been postponed indefinitely, said Reece, who chairs the committee.
Adcock had been the most prominent supporter of a citywide workplace smoking ban.
In the meantime, Reece, who worked closely with Adcock on the issue, is moving it forward.
Reece asked the city solicitor's office's last week to review legal challenges in other cities where indoor-air legislation has been adopted and upheld by courts. That would help Cincinnati draft its legislation - if it gets that far.
Whether the issue gets out of Reece's committee depends on public support, she said.
"It has to be something that citizens want," Reece said. She also said she would gauge public support, in part, on turnout at future public hearings.
The latest chapter in the debate will come Thursday, when bar and restaurant owners will host a news conference at the Montgomery Inn Boathouse to announce that they've formed an opposition group called the Greater Cincinnati Hospitality Coalition.
Laws for clean indoor air protect employees and customers from exposure to secondhand smoke, a carcinogen associated with increased risks for heart disease, lung cancer and respiratory disease, especially asthma, public health advocates say.
Voters in Columbus have approved a smoking ban that will take effect Jan. 31, and Lexington adopted one last year.
Elsewhere in Greater Cincinnati, Fairfield City Council is expected to introduce a measure tonight banning smoking.
However, the proposal would make an exception for businesses that hold liquor licenses.
Cincinnati advocates plan to keep pushing the issue throughout 2005 with radio advertisements and neighborhood meetings.
"We want to make Cincinnati a healthier place for everyone to live and work," said Tracey Carson, a member of the Cincinnati Clean Indoor Air Coalition, an advocacy group funded with money from the national tobacco settlement.
But Reece conceded that attitudes on City Council are mixed: Some members are keeping an open mind; others are hostile to the idea, siding with opposition groups - mostly bar and restaurant owners - who fear that a ban would erode their customer base and drive business out of the city.
Supporters of a smoking ban say claims of economic doom and gloom are exaggerated, pointing to examples such as New York City and El Paso, Texas, where government studies show that the hospitality industry in those cities continue to thrive despite smoking bans.
"My concern is not with other cities, but with Cincinnati," said Patrick Carroll, president of the Licensed Beverage Association of Southwest Ohio, which represents 200 business owners - half of whom own bars and restaurants in Cincinnati. "We want to run our businesses the way we want to."
Councilman David Crowley, whose family owns Crowley's bar in Mount Adams, said the health risks of secondhand smoke are clear, but he doesn't want the concerns of small businesses lost in this debate.
Asked whether the issue is something he wants council to vote on in 2005, Crowley said, "It's not something that I consider critical at this point. I think there are bigger issues."
But Cincinnati probably can't ignore the issue forever, especially as more U.S. cities are taking steps to eliminate indoor air pollution, said Councilman James Tarbell.
Tarbell, former owner of Arnold's Bar and Grill on Eighth Street, the oldest bar in Cincinnati, said he's keeping an open mind.
Ideally, Tarbell said, he'd like to see the private sector take care of it. But if it comes to government legislation, "I think a smoking ban could be marketed as something that makes Cincinnati an attractive place to be," Tarbell said. "Let's make it something that could be celebrated rather than something that is seen as punitive."
Six states - California, Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Massachusetts and New York - have comprehensive statewide smoking bans for all indoor workplaces, including bars and restaurants, according to the American Nonsmokers' Rights Foundation in Berkeley, Calif.
In addition, 1,811 U.S. municipalities have some sort of local clean indoor air law, the group says.
E-mail mleingang@enquirer.com
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Advisory group not sure smoking ban hurts business
Cincinnati - the city that once elected Jerry Springer Mayor (who then paid for a prostitute with a check while in office!), and doesn't have the money to keep its firehouses open all the time. The advisory committee is looking into a citywide smoking ban is sure secondhand smoke is harmful to everyone's health, but they haven't quite figured out if it is economically harmful to the businesses.
(A Cincinnati Resident)
LAWS ELSEWHERE
If Cincinnati passes a smoking ban, it would be far from the first to do so, according to an advisory committee report approved Wednesday. As of Oct. 5:
• 1,824 municipalities have passed their own smoking restrictions. Of those, 155 ban all smoking in bars, 206 ban all smoking in restaurants and 248 ban all smoking in workplaces.
• 10 states have 100 percent smoking bans on workplaces or restaurants or bars. Delaware, New York, and Massachusetts ban smoking in all three categories. California, Maine and Connecticut ban smoking in restaurants and bars. Florida bans smoking in workplaces and restaurants. South Dakota bans workplace smoking. Idaho and Utah ban smoking in restaurants.
By Tim Bonfield
Enquirer staff writer
December 9, 2004
A ban on smoking in Cincinnati bars and other public places could protect workers and customers from the harmful effects of second-hand smoke. But the potential economic impact remains unclear, according to a report to be submitted to Cincinnati City Council in January.
An advisory committee that has been meeting since August reached consensus Wednesday on the final wording of a report requested by Vice Mayor Alicia Reece.
The committee's report does not take a position on whether Cincinnati should have a smoking ban. Instead, it recaps the health risks of second-hand smoke and surveys how many restaurants and bars already ban smoking.
It notes that more than 1,800 other municipalities have enacted local smoking restrictions, including more than 150 that ban all smoking in bars. The report also cites dueling statistics about whether smoking bans are bad for business.
With the report complete, it's up to City Council to take action. So far, no draft ordinances have been proposed. The issue will likely be discussed in late January at a meeting of a health and small business committee chaired by Reece.
Columbus, Toledo and Lexington have passed smoking bans. In Columbus, bar owners filed suit Wednesday to block the law from taking effect in January. In Toledo, voters in November approved a measure to exempt bars and small restaurants with less than 10 employees. Lexington's law took effect in April.
Meanwhile, Elsmere city officials are expected to vote Tuesday on what could be Northern Kentucky's first indoor smoking ban.
Cincinnati already has laws that require no-smoking areas in most restaurants and other public places. It also bans smoking in seating areas of stadiums. But the rules do not affect bars, bowling alleys or common areas of shopping malls.
Advisory committee member and former city councilwoman Bobbie Sterne said a tougher smoking ban would be especially helpful for people who work in bars and restaurants.
"This is a constant health hazard for them," Sterne said.
But any proposed ban is likely to face intense opposition.
"If there was a market for non-smoking bars, you'd see one on every corner. But there's not," said Patrick Carroll, president of the Licensed Beverage Association of Southwest Ohio. "It doesn't just affect the bar owners. It affects the beer vendors, the potato chip man and the people who supply the glasses."
Some advisory committee members question whether council will take action on this topic.
"If the city doesn't have the money to deal with the (fire station) brownouts, then where is it going to find the money ... to enforce a smoking ban?" Carroll said.
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