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Smoking ban inflames bars, forces business elsewhere
By Dennis Quick
Senior Staff Writer
On a recent January weeknight, bartender Kevin Young served drinks to a handful of cigarette-smoking customers in a largely empty A.C.’s Bar & Grill on upper King Street.
It was the night following Charleston City Council’s Jan. 23 approval of an ordinance prohibiting smoking in workplaces, including bars and restaurants, a ruling which goes into effect in July and places the Holy City beside Sullivan’s Island, Greenville, Columbia and Bluffton in South Carolina’s roster of smoke-free municipalities. Beaufort has a countywide ban.
Young disapproves of the smoking ban and scoffs at the ordinance’s role as protector of employee health. He believes such protection is not necessary for adults capable of thinking for themselves.
“I don’t smoke. But I knew I’d be working in a smoking environment when I came here. Imposing your will on somebody else isn’t fair,” he said.
The anti-smoking ordinance, which the city council passed by a 9-4 vote, applies not only to bars and restaurants but to private clubs, offices, retail stores and all businesses with at least one employee. Outdoor smoking is permitted but must occur at a “reasonable distance” from buildings where smoking is prohibited so that cigarette smoke does not enter the buildings.
A U.S. Surgeon General’s 2006 report on the health hazards of secondhand smoke to nonsmokers largely influenced the council’s ruling.
While bar owners fear the ban threatens their livelihoods, many Charleston restaurateurs have already turned their establishments smoke-free.
The state Department of Health and Environmental Control lists 67 Charleston restaurants, including fast-food establishments, delis and fine-dining eateries, where smoking is prohibited.
In February 2006, the S.C. Tobacco Collaborative released a survey in which 70% of Charleston residents said they would support a city ordinance prohibiting smoking in all workplaces, including bars and restaurants.
“Bars probably will be hurt more than others,” Tom Sponseller, president of the South Carolina Hospitality Association, said of Charleston’s smoking ban.
The association prefers that anti-smoking ordinances be administered statewide rather than in separate municipalities. Otherwise, bars and restaurants in anti-smoking municipalities will lose business to establishments in municipalities where smoking is permitted, Sponseller said.
“We saw this in Greenville. Customers will go where they feel welcome,” he said, adding that a statewide ban would be fairer.
Until Sullivan’s Island passed its anti-smoking ordinance last summer, Bert’s Bar was bustling with live bands and good-time, sipping-and-smoking patrons. Even during weekday afternoons the place was fairly busy, said Bert’s bartender Mary Lynn Sheppard.
Now Bert’s is in a kind of limbo, its future uncertain. Business has faded like thinning smoke from a stale cigarette. Bands don’t play at Bert’s anymore; there aren’t enough customers to support them, Sheppard said.
“Everybody goes to Mount Pleasant or Isle of Palms so they can smoke and have a beer,” she explained.
Like A.C.’s bartender Young, Sheppard does not smoke yet is against the ban. She said she neither wants nor needs government to protect her from cigarette smoke.
“I knew what I was getting into when I started working here eight years ago,” Sheppard said.
In September, Bert’s filed a lawsuit against Sullivan’s Island to challenge the ban. Sheppard and others believe the case will end up before the state Supreme Court.
On the Charleston restaurant scene, Cintra, a fine-dining establishment, went smoke-free last November, said manager Jason Fuchs.
The result?
“We’ve lost a few smokers. But we have more nonsmokers than smokers,” Fuchs said.
Dennis Quick covers hospitality and tourism for the Business Journal. E-mail him at dquick@charlestonbusiness.com.
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