Some firms and organizations say they make far less a year after the law took effect. But lawmakers say benefits are worth the cost.

By Edward Colimore
Inquirer Staff Writer

Playdrome Woodcrest owner Jon Perper (standing) talks with a customer. "We immediately saw a dramatic hit in the bar part of our business" in Cherry Hill's Woodcrest Shopping Center, Perper said.

Jon Perper says he'll close his Woodcrest bowling center in June and knows of about 10 other New Jersey centers expected to follow.

Deborah Dowdell, president of the New Jersey Restaurant Association, says hundreds of restaurants, bars and taverns have seen sales decline, by as much as 50 percent; others have closed in the last year.

Meanwhile, many veterans' posts, fraternal organizations, billiard parlors, and charitable bingo and raffle groups have watched their take drop.

A year after the state's indoor public smoking ban went into effect, employers and organizations across New Jersey are complaining that their business has gone up in smoke.

Smoking customers - especially from Pennsylvania - are staying home or taking their patronage to Philadelphia's suburbs, where there is no ban, business owners say. Indoor public smoking also is prohibited in Philadelphia.

But New Jersey lawmakers said they had seen little if any negative effect in the state and are unlikely to adjust the ban, unless it is to eliminate the exemption for casinos.

"The Legislature would have to see data before it would be prepared to subject people to the health risks of indoor smoke," said Assemblyman Herb Conaway Jr. (D., Burlington), a physician and sponsor of the ban. "It would be a very tough road to travel."

Another sponsor, Sen. John Adler (D., Camden), said similar smoking restrictions had worked in New York and California with no economic disruption. A ban is being considered in Pennsylvania.

"There is no reason it won't work in New Jersey," Adler said. "People have to adjust their personal habits to abide by the law."

The law's first year "has been almost entirely good," he added. "It's hard to quantify lives saved and illnesses avoided."

Many business owners, however, say they have had no trouble quantifying financial losses.

"We immediately saw a dramatic hit in the bar part of our business," Finnigan's, said Perper, 52, as he sat in an empty Finnigan's in Cherry Hill's Woodcrest Shopping Center. "This was like Cheers. People would come here after work and watch the bowling" through a big window behind the bar.

"But business dropped off 20 percent compared to the same time the year before. I also saw a 10 percent drop in open play at night. I knew what it was immediately. . . . The smoking law has improved the environment in the bowling centers unfortunately at the cost of doing business."

Perper, chairman of the political action committee for the 35-member New Jersey Bowling Proprietors Association, said his losses and slim profit margin had forced his decision to close the center, which his father opened in 1960.

He plans to sell the liquor license and concentrate on reshaping his Playdrome on Kings Highway in Cherry Hill into a family entertainment center with bowling, billiards, and rides and other attractions for children, he said. He also owns bowling centers in Pennsville, N.J., where the landlord has helped by lowering the rent, and in Devon and Allentown.

His centers in New Jersey "have a high customer base from Pennsylvania, where there is no smoking ban," said Perper, who said he had lost about $500,000 in gross revenue at the Cherry Hill and Woodcrest locations in the last year. "If we had smoking and Pennsylvania didn't, they would be flocking over here."

While the law exempts casinos, Atlantic City has taken measures that are soon expected to require 75 percent of the gambling floors to be smoke-free. Some New Jersey legislators, including Adler, also have sponsored legislation to eliminate the casino exemption.

Adler, Conaway, and other ban proponents, including the American Cancer Society and the Summit-based New Jersey GASP (Group Against Smoking Pollution), argue that the health benefits far outweigh any inconveniences. In New Jersey, an estimated 2,000 people die of secondhand smoke each year, according to the American Cancer Society.

While having benefits, the Legislature's action also has disadvantages, according to the state hospitality industry, which brought in $3.9 billion last year.

Dowdell, of the New Jersey Restaurant Association, which represents 1,200 members, said hundreds of the state's 23,000 eating and drinking establishments had been hurt.

While many others reported no financial impact or even a slight increase in sales, business at places depending more heavily on liquor sales dropped "anywhere from 5 to 50 percent," Dowdell said.

Among them is the traditional corner tavern, "where people would go to smoke, meet friends and have a burger," she said. "Now they're saying, 'If I can't smoke, I'll buy a six-pack and have a cookout at home.' . . .

"You can't unring the bell. For some, the damage is done."

Eleanore Travia, former owner of Illusions, a go-go bar in Florence, knows firsthand. After the number of customers declined precipitously, she closed her doors Feb. 1 and put the business up for sale.

"My business was down 65 percent on April 16 last year - the day after the law went into effect - and it never came back," said Travia, 64, whose family owned the bar since the 1950s.

"I had a friendly neighborhood place. To hell with these people," she said, referring to smoking-ban supporters. "My $40,000 in sales tax is gone. I had 15 employees regularly and 150 dancers over the course of the year. Does New Jersey care they don't have jobs? They don't care. I would have stayed another 15 years, but now I'm done with New Jersey."

Organizations that depend on games to raise money also have been hit. Attendance at bingo games in the state has dropped 25 percent to 30 percent, said William Yorke, a regulatory compliance consultant and retired executive director of the state's Legalized Games of Chance Control Commission.

"The typical bingo player is a smoker," said Yorke, vice president of product development for Continental State Fair Bingo in Belleville, N.J., which provides bingo supplies and instant raffle tickets.

As a lobbyist for the bowling centers, Dennis M. Culnan Sr. tried to persuade legislators to allow the construction of ventilated smoking rooms, such as those in New York and Maryland.

He sent a bowling shoe to every lawmaker to make a point: Bowlers can't go outside to smoke because their leather-bottom shoes can get damp and become slip-and-fall hazards when they return to the hardwood lanes.

"That problem - over liability - makes the bowling centers unique," Culnan said.

Jon Kroljic, general manager and vice president of Perper's Woodcrest Playdrome, said he'd be sorry to leave the business where he has had so many pleasant memories.

"It's been home to me. Everybody knows your name here," he said. "You don't feel like a stranger."

Bowler Henry Baldyga, 82, of Voorhees, was the first customer to cast a ball down an alley at the Woodcrest bowling center - and he plans to be the last.

"I bowled at other places over the years, but this was the best," he said. "I'm very disappointed."