NJ Star Ledger - Tuesday, June 17, 2003

It began as a New York City-style push to ban smoking in virtually every public place in New Jersey: bars, restaurants, museums, office buildings, ballparks.

But that was before the casinos, restaurant operators, bar owners, cigarette makers and their lobbyists showed up in force.

"It's like a toothless tiger now," one of the ban's proponents, Assemblyman Reed Gusciora (D-Mercer), said yesterday after an Assembly committee amended the proposal to allow smoking in bars and in designated areas in restaurants and casinos.

The action followed a Senate committee's vote last week to exempt casinos and small, owner-operated bars from its version of the smoking prohibition bill.

Restaurant and tavern owners say the exceptions are needed to take the economic sting out of a smoking ban. Anti-smoking groups say the bills are now shot through with too many loopholes for some backers of the ban to stomach.

Gusciora said he is so disgusted by the revisions to his bill that he would not have voted for it if he had a seat on the Health and Human Services Committee, which approved the changes 8-0.

"It's terrible," Gusciora said.

The Assembly legislation "doesn't do anything for public health," Sen. John Adler (D-Camden), a sponsor of the Senate version, said.

The changes "exempted pretty much every place you can smoke in New Jersey now," complained NJBreathes director Larry Downs. "Today we got the tobacco industry version of the Clean Indoor Air Act, which is none. You can smoke wherever you want, whenever you want."

New Jersey law currently allows smoking in restaurants that permit it if they post signs informing customers they have a smoking section.

Restaurant and bar owners said a complete ban would devastate their businesses and spawn bankruptcies and layoffs.

"We don't want to be a prohibitionist society," said Dale Florio, a lobbyist for the New Jersey Restaurant Association and cigarette maker Philip Morris. He said "zealot groups" are pushing for a total ban instead of a fair compromise.

The Assembly bill would allow smoking in all bars, let casinos set aside smoking areas accounting for 20 percent of their premises, and allow restaurants to allow smoking in 20 percent of their seats. The Senate and Assembly bills both allow smoking in cigar bars, in social, fraternal or religious halls such as Rotary and Elks clubs, and in employee break rooms.

Gov. James E. McGreevey would prefer to let each town decide whether to ban smoking. But he has not said he would veto a ban if it reached his desk.

Lawmakers are not expected to finish debate on a smoking ban until after Nov. 4, when the entire Legislature is up for election. With the Senate, Assembly and governor's office in disagreement, the outcome of the debate is uncertain.

Assembly Majority Leader Joseph Roberts (D-Camden), who recently sold his interest in several restaurants and bars in Sea Isle City, helped hammer out the amendments. He met privately with some legislators during yesterday's hearing to press them to support the changes.

His co-sponsor, Assemblywoman Loretta Weinberg (D-Bergen), said compromise was necessary to secure the votes needed to get the bill out of committee.

The New Jersey Restaurant Association led the fight against the bill yesterday, and the group brought to the hearing a Manhattan restaurateur struggling with the ban New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg signed into law this year.

"It's been a failure for us," said Ciaran Staunton, owner of O'Neill's, who said he laid off three of his 14 employees after the New York ban took effect March 30. "The people we've laid off now have clean air, but they have no jobs.

"We may not be in business this time next year," he added.

Restaurant Association officials said they would support a ban only if it is a "level playing field" covering the entire state and all establishments, including casinos, small bars and social clubs.

The American Cancer Society, the American Heart Association, NJBreathes and the other supporters of the ban say stopping public smoking is warranted because secondhand smoke harms the health of nonsmokers.

"If you believe there's an economic impact, consider it a choice between a few bucks in the cash register and a cancer diagnosis," NJBreathes' Downs said.

CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, June 13, 2003

The Illinois Restaurant Association is offering to launch an "aggressive" campaign to educate restaurants on how and why to go smoke-free to head off a controversial smoking ban in Chicago.

Tips, patrons and working hours are down and layoffs are up since New York restaurants were forced to go smoke-free, according to Colleen McShane, president of the Illinois Restaurant Association.

McShane wants to avoid similar problems here at a time when the economy stinks, business travel and convention business are slow and many restaurants are struggling to stay alive.

"Chicago is unique in that we're a convention city. Chicago has an image that attracts a lot of visitors [who prefer to dine out with] the steak and the cigar," McShane said.

"In New York, they're suffering from the smoking ban. There are restaurants that are doing all right. But [at other places], sales have dropped by 20 percent . . ."

To head off a similar fate in Chicago, the Illinois Restaurant Association has offered to embark on what McShane calls a "very, very, very aggressive" educational program. McShane refused to reveal details pending negotiations with City Council Health Committee Chairman Ed Smith (28th), sponsor of the stalled Chicago smoking ban.

She would only say: "The Chicago Health Department and other health departments have recognition programs for restaurants that go smoke-free. I'd like to be able to sit down with them, work with them and link with those recognition programs. And our education programs as well would teach--give the tools to restaurants--to go smoke-free. It's a massive education campaign."

About 400 Chicago restaurants have already gone smoke-free in response to market demands.

Smith has spent the last few months attempting to forge a compromise with the Illinois Restaurant Association. He refused to say whether an education campaign would be enough to persuade him to back off.

"The ordinance is not dead. I'm committed on the ordinance that I put in. That's all I can say," he said.

The last time the Health Committee held a public hearing on the proposed anti-smoking ordinance, restaurant owners did their best to slow it down.

They warned that a Chicago-only ban would send customers fleeing to the suburbs and prompt conventions to go elsewhere.

Source: Times Picayunne

Senate already OK'd bill, others support it

Saturday May 31, 2003

By Ed Anderson

BATON ROUGE -- Smoking in the Superdome may be a thing of the past by the time the New Orleans Saints tee it up against Ricky Williams and the Miami Dolphins on Aug. 28.

A bill making its way through the Legislature would completely ban smoking in the Superdome, and not just in the arena area where puffing away has been off limits for years, said Sen. Jon Johnson, D-New Orleans, sponsor of Senate Bill 869.

Johnson's bill was unanimously approved by the Senate Committee on Health and Welfare May 21 and, on Tuesday, was given 31-0 approval by the full Senate. It now goes to the House Committee on Health and Welfare and if it survives there it will go to the full House. If approved and signed into law by Gov. Foster, the bill would become effective Aug. 15.

"I think we are going to pass the bill," Johnson said Friday. "I think people fully realize the impact smoke has on public health."

Johnson said that smoking in the Dome is the "No. 1 complaint" registered by Dome patrons.

A state law passed years ago bans smoking in the arena area of the stadium. Dome officials have tried to designate smoking areas in the lobby areas by Gates B, D, F and H, said Dome spokesman Bill Curl, but those areas have been difficult to manage.

In a letter to Johnson, Doug Thornton, general manager of the Superdome and the New Orleans Arena, said SMG, which manages both facilities, backs the bill.

"Patrons tend to smoke in the seating sections, the concourses and restrooms," Thornton said. He said that "on more than one occasion," cigarettes ignited fires in trash cans. He said the Dome can easily implement a plan to let smokers outside and readmit them if the bill becomes law.

Johnson's bill gives the Superdome Commission, which oversees operations of the Dome and the nearby Arena, the authority to adopt rules that would boot smokers from the stadium if they smoke anywhere in the facility after being warned not to do so.