Restaurant owners, customers
react to new smoking ban
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| If the law is signed by Governor Tim Kaine this month, restaurants and public places will have to create non-smoking areas by Dec. 1. (NED OLIVER/ The Rockbridge Report) |
Virginia will become the 35th state with a ban on smoking in restaurants and bars late this year when its Indoor Clean Air Act goes into effect.
The new law, passed last month, takes effect Dec. 1 if Gov. Tim Kaine signs it later this month. The Virginia smoking ban will not be as strict as similar laws in other states. It will allow businesses to have a smoking section only if that section is closed off from nonsmoking patrons, with a separate ventilation system.
The measure, aimed at protecting employees and customers from secondhand smoke, was controversial as it took its course through the General Assembly. Not surprisingly, it is also getting a mixed reaction from local restaurant owners, employees and patrons.
“I personally think the passage of this law is ridiculous,” said George Huger, owner of the Southern Inn Restaurant in Lexington, which already prohibits smoking. “It’s my business what I do, and your business what you do.”
Cindy Campbell, owner of The Palms, a Lexington restaurant and bar that currently allows smoking, had a different take on the law.
“I am just so pleased,” said Campbell. “We’re not going to wait for Dec. 1 to go non-smoking.” Campbell said she thought Virginia was “a little behind the times.”
“I guess we’re just catching up with the rest of the country,” she said.
Local legislators Sen. Emmett Hanger and Del. Ben Cline both voted against the ban, while a third local lawmaker, Sen. Creigh Deeds, voted in favor of it. The law passed the Senate 26-13 and the House 60-37. Gov. Tim Kaine is expected to sign the legislation later this month.
Donna Mays, a longtime waitress at the Lexington Restaurant, said that cigarette smoke irritates her, but that her opinion was not common among the rest of the staff.
“When I found out a few days ago, I was doing a little dance,” said Mays. “My husband died of emphysema.” She added that it was difficult to watch “people come in and smoke around these elderly people and small kids.”
Southern Inn bartender Caitlin Fix said that smoking in a restaurant or bar does not bother her because she is a smoker.
“I think it should be up to the owner,” said Fix. “It’s the customer’s choice if they come to a smoky bar or not.”
Erin Berryhill, also a bartender at the Southern Inn, disagreed.
“It’s one thing if you’re a customer,” she said. “But if you’re an employee you don’t have as much of a choice.”
A few local business owners and managers said they thought their facilities would already qualify under the new law’s provisions. For others, at least some renovations will be required to bring existing smoking sections into compliance.
Susan Floyd, manager at the Lexington Applebee’s, said her restaurant already has a separate ventilation system in place. She expects Applebee’s to continue to allow smoking, but she thinks the restaurant will have to add doors to fully enclose the smoking area.
For some establishments, such as The Palms, the addition of a smoking section with separate ventilation is so impractical that the owners said they did not even consider it. At least one customer expressed concern that the provision for a separately ventilated smoking section might give an unfair advantage to chain restaurants.
“I think it’s going to hurt local restaurants that don’t have a room closed off for smokers,” said Sammy Snyder, a regular customer at The Palms.
And amid widely varied and strong opinions, there was also room for indifference.
“I don’t care,” said Kristen Swisher, a manager at Pizza Hut. “But the Northerners are always surprised when they find out you can smoke. I say, you’re in Virginia, we grow tobacco.”
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