Government & Politics  July 6, 2007

Statewide indoor smoking ban marks first year quietly

Any fires of resistance to the state’s smoking ban in indoor public places have been snuffed out after a year, say anti-smoking advocates and business owners.

The Colorado Clean Indoor Air Act marked its one-year anniversary on July 1, and after an initial bit of education for some die-hard puffers, the haze of indoor smoke in Northern Colorado bars, restaurants and other public establishments has lifted.

“It wasn’t the problem that people expected,´ said Joe Fleming, Tobacco-Free Weld County coordinator. “We’ve been real pleased with the county-wide implementation. We spent tons of time and went to lots of meetings with law enforcement. We felt Greeley probably had one of the most comprehensive smoking ordinances in the state, and we really played on that.”

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Greeley voters passed a ban on smoking in public places in 2004, two years before the statewide ban went into effect.

Fleming said with many Weld County residents visiting Greeley for shopping or dining out, the no-smoking message had already begun to filter into other communities.

“When you create that domino effect, people get used to that,” he said.

Deirdre Sullivan, Fleming’s Larimer County counterpart, said the state smoking ban was just as easily embraced in her part of the region.

“We didn’t see the doom and gloom that the tobacco industry said would occur,” she said.

“We have been working with law enforcement in all of the jurisdictions in Larimer County and, according to them, there haven’t been any enforcement issues. The intent of the law was really to be self-enforcing,” Sullivan said. “Predominantly, it’s usually just an issue of educating a patron or an employee.”

But if a business wanted to flout the ban, there are teeth that can be applied, Sullivan noted. A first violation ticket costs $200, a second is $300 and every additional ticket written is $500.

Like Weld County, Larimer County had its biggest city – Fort Collins – already on board with an indoor smoking ban that had been in effect since 2003.

Fears unfounded

Before last July, there were fears by some businesses that the ban would seriously impact their bottom line or possibly force them to close. Tasha Eikenbary, manager of the Charco Broiler just outside of Fort Collins’ city limits at 1716 E. Mulberry St., said worries about the ban at her restaurant have dissipated.

“It’s not been too bad,” she said. “We’ve seen a slight decrease in our bar sales but our restaurant sales have been pretty steady. We’ve actually seen all of our numbers go up. It’s definitely not been as bad as I thought it would be.”

Ken Thompson, manager of the T-Bar Inn in downtown Wellington, said he was generally pleased with how the ban was received at his establishment.

“We made a pretty smooth transition, I guess,” he said. “We had some disgruntled people, but everybody’s pretty used to it now.”

Thompson said in the early days of the ban some patrons who wanted to smoke took their alcoholic drinks outside with them. “We had to let them know that’s a big no-no,” he said.

Thompson said the T-Bar had segregated areas for smokers before the ban, so the increase in non-smoking customers was not as great as it could have been. But he said the ban has not hurt his business. “I think it’s held steady.”

One Fort Collins establishment that may have benefited from the ban is Algiers, a hookah bar at 120 W. Laurel near the Colorado State University campus. The bar is one of two in town – the other being Narghile Nights at 621 S. College Ave. – that sells tobacco products and offers patrons the opportunity to smoke exotic tobacco blends in hookah-style water pipes. Aficionados claim smoking tobacco through a water pipe decreases the amount of nicotine, tar, carbon dioxide and other harmful ingredients ingested through cigarettes.

Trevor Mead, Algiers manager, said the ban has been “good and bad” for business. While it’s probably brought in a few more smokers than otherwise, Mead said the media attention given the business “reinforces a negative stereotype of hookah smoking that isn’t necessarily the case.”

Hookah bars, cigar bars and retail tobacco outlets are among the few exceptions to the state’s indoor smoking ban. Gov. Bill Ritter earlier this year signed a bill that extends the ban to the state’s 44 casinos as of Jan. 1, but the Legislature left standing for now the exemption for establishments that derive more than 5 percent of retail sales from tobacco.

However, cities are free to pass even stricter regulations than the ban includes, according to Sullivan. “That’s one of the great things about the state law,” she said. “It allows local governments to increase the level of protection from second-hand smoke.”

Positive feedback

Sullivan said feedback she’s heard from the public has all been positive. “What we’ve heard is they forget how wonderful it is until they go to a place that hasn’t gone smoke-free,” she said.

Sullivan said the ban saves businesses an estimated $3,900 per employee per year in lost productivity, health insurance costs, cleaning and burn repair costs, carpet replacement and the like. “It’s definitely advantageous from a business perspective,” she said.

Figures from the Colorado Department of Revenue support Fleming’s contention that local restaurants have seen business increase since the ban. Statewide restaurant sales increased 8.8 percent from the fourth quarter of 2005 – before the ban was enacted – to the fourth quarter of 2006, a rate matched by Weld County. Larimer County sales were up just 5.5 percent, but the most recent industry figures, from February, show Colorado restaurants doing 7.5 percent better business than last February.

Even though the first year of the ban has gone well, the work will continue, Fleming said. “We’ll continue to try to reach populations that still smoke,” he said. Those populations include teens and young adults, who still smoke at a much higher rate than other groups.

Any fires of resistance to the state’s smoking ban in indoor public places have been snuffed out after a year, say anti-smoking advocates and business owners.

The Colorado Clean Indoor Air Act marked its one-year anniversary on July 1, and after an initial bit of education for some die-hard puffers, the haze of indoor smoke in Northern Colorado bars, restaurants and other public establishments has lifted.

“It wasn’t the problem that people expected,´ said Joe Fleming, Tobacco-Free Weld County coordinator. “We’ve been real pleased with the county-wide implementation. We spent tons of time and went to lots of meetings with law enforcement.…

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