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From the Cincinnati Enquirer
http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061203/BIZ01/612030353/1001/BIZ

Law leaving many shops in a haze over following the rules

When you walk into a bar, a bowling center or bingo hall on Thursday and smell nothing, you'll know Ohio's statewide ban on virtually all indoor smoking has begun.

Then again, give them a day or two to flush out the fumes. The ban takes effect Thursday, and some establishments intend to go out in a cloud of glory the night before.

The East End Café, a tobacco-friendly bar in Columbia Tusculum, is planning a "Smoke 'em If Ya Got 'em" party and bringing in the band 6 String Johnson for the blowout event.

"We're calling this the last chance for personal freedom party," said East End's general manager, Jeff Stewart.

By the mandate of 58 percent of Ohio voters Nov. 7, smoking is going the way of asbestos and lead paint in public buildings - that is, buildings where the public is permitted.

At 12:01 a.m. Thursday, proprietors of virtually all businesses will be required to stop all smoking, remove ashtrays and post no-smoking signs bearing the state's smoking snitch-line, 866-559-6446.

Smokers will have to step outside, with a handful of exemptions - unless they're in a tobacco store or one of the designated smoking rooms of a hotel.

Nursing home residents will be able to light up in smoking rooms. Members of free-standing, nonprofit private clubs without employees also will still be able to smoke.

The new law creates a huge shift in the culture of Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky. About 22 percent of adult Ohioans smoke, and the new law won't just force them to change their habits in public buildings - some commercial vehicles also fall under the smoking ban.

The law also gives Ohio a new distinction: It is the first Midwestern state to enact a statewide smoking ban. Ohio is the 16th state to outlaw smoking not only in office buildings, but in restaurants and bars. No other state between Delaware and Colorado has done so.

Support for the Smoke Free Workplace Act was broad. The law passed in 72 of the state's 88 counties, including by wide margins in Hamilton, Butler, Clermont and Warren counties. By contrast, a tobacco and hospitality industry-backed constitutional amendment to curb smoking less dramatically lost in every single county.

"We think it's going to make a dramatic impact on the overall health of Ohioans," said Jay Carey, a spokesman for the Ohio Department of Health, the agency that will enforce the law.

Nearly half of all nonsmoking Americans are regularly exposed to second-hand smoke, according to a U.S. surgeon general's report issued in June. Nonsmokers exposed to secondhand smoke at home or work increase their risk of developing heart disease by 25 percent to 30 percent and lung cancer by 20 percent to 30 percent, the report concluded.

MANY QUESTIONS

From the smallest of bars to the tallest of skyscrapers, proprietors are trying to figure out what they have to do to comply with the law. The trade group for the state's 27,000 restaurants and bars, the Ohio Restaurant Association, is holding seminars across the state next week, including one in Blue Ash, to answer members' questions.

Rich Degory, general manager of Suburban Bowl in Batavia Township, said it won't be convenient for bowlers to go outside because they're leery of stepping on rough or wet pavement in their slick-bottomed bowling shoes.

"It's going to cause some serious headaches. There's no doubt about that," Degory said. "There's so many people that smoke here, it's crazy."

The early feedback from his customers, he said, doesn't bode well.

"I've got people saying they're going to drive to Kentucky," he said. "People say, 'If I can't smoke, I just won't bowl.' I hope people just deal with it."

Horace Barnes, co-owner of Barnes Barber Shop in Madisonville, said he plans to buy no-smoking signs and post them in the shop before the new law goes into effect. He said about 30 percent of his customers are smokers who puff away while they are waiting to get a haircut. He's nervous about their continued patronage.

"I hope they continue to come here," he said.

NOT IN THE STADIUM

Uncertainty about the law is so great that officials with the Cincinnati Reds and Cincinnati Bengals had to ask the Hamilton County Prosecutor's Office for guidance last week. The prosecutor's advice? To ban smoking completely, even from the outdoor concourses, stairwells and ramps.

Bob Pickford of Findlay Market in Over-the-Rhine also wants some guidance.

"Our outdoor areas are all public streets," Pickford said. "It has been our policy that there be no smoking at entrances and exits. We have permitted smoking at benches in the market. Now there's some question about whether that's going to be permitted."

Maureen Kaiser, spokeswoman for Paramount's Kings Island, said the amusement park currently has designated smoking areas throughout the park. But park officials aren't sure how the ban affects their business. She said they would know what to do by the Mason park's opening day April 21.

Michael Smith, director of Riverbend Music Center in Anderson Township, said officials will talk with the facility's lawyers about how to comply with the law.

"Because it just happened, we're just getting into it because we don't open until next spring," he said. "The pavilion has been nonsmoking for years and years, but there's an open-air facility that we have to look at."

OFFICES AND HOSPITALS

Colliers Turley Martin Tucker, a Cincinnati commercial real-estate brokerage that manages high-rises and office complexes, is seeking a legal opinion from its lawyers to ensure its buildings are in compliance.

Dennis Patel, who operates Holiday Inn Express hotels in Blue Ash and Sharonville, doesn't need one.

"My Blue Ash hotel is nonsmoking already," Patel said. Three of the 73 rooms at his Sharonville hotel are set aside for smokers - fewer than the 14 (or 20 percent of the total) allowed under the new law. He said there's no demand for smoking rooms at the Blue Ash hotel. "Ninety-nine-point-nine percent of our customers are nonsmokers," he said.

Cincinnati-area hospitals had already elected to prohibit smoking. Sher McClanahan, chief operating officer at Bethesda North Hospital in Montgomery, said members of the Greater Cincinnati Hospital Council - including Bethesda and its Tri-Health sister Good Samaritan Hospital in University Heights - are going smoke-free Jan. 1.

At Bethesda and Good Sam, that means employees, patients, visitors and contractors will have to leave the campus to smoke. The hospitals' 9,300 employees agreed to quit smoking on hospital grounds as of the Great American Smokeout day on Nov. 16. The rule will go into effect for everyone else on Jan. 1.

"If people need a cigarette (after Jan. 1), they will need to get in their car and leave campus," McClanahan said.

SMOKERS ARE FUMING

Some smokers are still seething about the Ohio smoking ban. Among voters, they were a minority. Now some feel like pariahs.

"I used to go to Applebee's two times a week with my husband," wrote Sherry Gantenberg of North College Hill in an e-mail to The Enquirer. "When they went nonsmoking, we have never been back there, not even for a carry-out! I encourage all smokers to not accept this like New York and Florida, etc. I encourage all Ohioans to ban Ohio when it comes to drinking and dining and smoking."

Another writer, Jared Schaefer, feels otherwise. He calls the law a "great step forward."

"We need to appear more progressive in our thinking in order to attract young professionals to our area, and this can really help," he wrote.

"Other cities such as Minneapolis, New York and Boston all have smoking bans, and the people I know that live there think it is great," Schaefer went on. "In fact, they see more and more of their friends are actually willing to go out and support the local economy at bars and restaurants because their clothes will not stink and their health will not be at risk."

Staff writers John Eckberg, Jon Newberry, Cliff Peale, Mike Boyer, Jeff McKinney and Alexander Coolidge contributed.

Comments

CMoody70 on Jun 26, 2007 4:50 am

I have been a RN for 16 yrs and I do smoke. Few times in 12 to14 hr shift I go outside and have one. I am a hard worker, loyal, and have seldom called in. I have a problem when I have to pay, with my tax dollars for pt's healthcare that have completely milked the healthcare system,,,,,,,inc me!!! The people that are on welfare are the pt's that run me ragged....."They think they have some entitlelment!!!",to order me around!!! I am tax paying US citizen....NOW!!! I have the illegals also mutching off of me, and they too, run me around as if I am a waitress, Even if I explain I had someone very sick and I had to help them first, they get attitude about how their soda took too long to get to them. I have pt's that are on dialaysis that leave the the hospital, get high, and return.....Dr's and all know it..........IT IS SICKENING....Now they tell me I can't go outside without walking the distance of a football field to have a cigarette!!!!!!! MY GOD!!!! It is not illegal!!! I am a adult, and I do know it is not at all healthly.....I would even pay 10 times the healthcare premiums that non smokers pay......I realise it causes copd........BUT I am getting to the point I am getting VERY bitter........Probably nicotine w/d:-) Help!!! This nurse about ready to give up the heatlhcare system all together!!! Are their any other nurses out there that agree?

Found this coment on line:

A woman in texas went outside a bar to smoke and was kidnapped and raped. she sued the state for 20 million dollars and won and they lifted the ban. i dont know about u but as a woman and a smoker i dont want 2 even chance that seeing as how that almost happened to me. if u dont like smoke stay at home and drink. plus bars make alot of revenue for the state. less customers= less money for bars= less money for state= less money for gvt= less money for all. bad enough that they keep raising the price of cigarettes. im all for not smoking in restraunts but not being able to smoke IN A BAR is ridiculous.