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Smoking Bans

Liberty Tavern not so keen on liberty

by Jacob Grier on January 6, 2009

Virginia Governor Tim Kaine is predictably pushing once again for a comprehensive statewide smoking ban. Not so predictably, he’s teamed up with the owners of Clarendon’s Liberty Tavern to launch his campaign:

This year, he believes momentum is on his side. At a news conference Tuesday at a Clarendon tavern, Kaine said the public is increasingly supportive of such bans…

Stephen Fedorchak, owner of The Liberty Tavern, the restaurant where Kaine held his news conference, said he has been in the business long enough to know smoking was once entrenched in bars and restaurants. But those days have passed, he said.

He said he does not regret the decision to ban smoking in his restaurant and said these days “smokers are somewhat used to going out in a … fresh-air environment” and no longer assume they will be allowed to light up.

I was something of a regular at Liberty when it opened in 2007 and nearly became an employee (they offered me a job, but I wasn’t comfortable with the time commitment). It was an unofficial home for many libertarian-minded people in the area and was among the handful of bars I revisited when back in town last month. That, however, was my last beer there. I sent them the following letter this afternoon:

I was disappointed to hear today that Liberty Tavern is teaming up with Governor Kaine to push for a statewide smoking ban. I’m happy that you’ve chosen to make your business smokefree and have found customers who welcome the clean air. You’ve set an admirable example for other Virginia businesses. So please, leave them free to try it on their own. It’s a sad irony that a place called the “Liberty Tavern” is now attempting to force its policy onto every other bar and restaurant in the state.

Though I’ve enjoyed the food and drink at your bar in the past, I value my freedom of choice even more. From now on when I’m in Virginia I’ll be exercising mine at Arlington’s many other worthwhile establishments.

Their email address is info@thelibertytavern.com. Take a minute to let them know how you feel.

For an alternative bar, try out EatBar and Tallula if you haven’t already been. Liberty Tavern’s only real advantage over this nearby competitor is proximity to the Metro. EatBar’s food is the equal or better of anything at Liberty, the beer selection is bigger and better, the wine list is far larger, and the crowd features fewer lame young professionals. Even if you don’t like the fact that they allow smoking in the small back room, you can appreciate that they don’t think every other restaurant in Virginia should be forced to do the same.

One other note on the proposed ban: Kaine is always careful to refer to this as a ban on smoking in “restaurants.” Technically, that’s true. That’s because there is no such thing as a bar in Virginia. According to ABC regulations, all businesses that serve on-premise alcohol are required to sell significant amounts of food. Casual listeners are likely to interpret the proposal as a supposedly reasonable restriction on restaurants that leaves bars free to set their own policies. It’s hard to view his word choice as anything but intentionally misleading. Since what he’s really pushing is a smoking ban in all businesses, he should say so directly.

Update 1/7/09: Thanks to Radley Balko, former bartender and former smoker Jonathan Blanks, and Suetonius at Freedom and Shit for spreading the word. Good job!

Update 1/8/09: And now David Boaz at the Cato blog, Andrew Roth at the Club for Growth, and Caleb Brown at Catallaxy.

Update 1/9/09: Fr33 Agents threw in with the boycott, leading to coverage this morning at Washington City Paper’s blog.

Previously:
Don’t need no stinkin’ bans!

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Don’t need no stinkin’ bans!

by Jacob Grier on January 5, 2009

Chad sends in a blog post noticing that Arlington, VA bars and restaurants are trending smokefree in the absence of legislation:

They said Arlington’s bars would never voluntarily go smoke-free … then Liberty Tavern did and places like Eleventh, Union Jacks, and Clarendon Grill soon followed.

They said sports bars would never go smoke-free … then Summers created a separate smoke-free bar, followed by Four Courts and Crystal City Sports Pub, and Thirsty Bernie’s opened entirely smoke-free.

Now Arlington’s best diner, Bob & Edith’s at Columbia Pike & S. Wayne St., is going 100% smoke-free.

Arlington makes an interesting test case. It’s one of the wealthiest, most liberal cities in the country, and residents would surely approve a smoking ban if they were allowed to. Fortunately they’re restrained by Virginia law that forbids local anti-smoking ordinances to exceed the state’s own rules. Every year a statewide ban is introduced in the senate and immediately shot down by the tobacco-friendly house.

The fact that popular bars and established restaurants are voluntarily choosing to restrict smoking shows that ban opponents have been right all along: given demand for smokefree environments, profit-seeking business owners will eventually provide them, if not as immediately as a legislative ban would. And as someone who generally prefers bars with clean air, I think that’s fantastic — as long as dive bars like Jay’s or the backroom cigar lounge at EatBar remain free to set their own policies too.

The same has been true in Portland, another city one might have expected to institute a smoking ban long ago. Even before the statewide ban went into effect last week I noticed there were far more smokefree bars here than in other places I’ve lived. I checked the directory at SmokeFreeOregon.com and the site listed more than 400 establishments within the city limits. That was hardly a lack of choice for non-smokers.

At best, one could make the case for nudging businesses to go smokefree with one-time tax breaks to speed up adoption of the policy. Otherwise, leave people free to associate on their own terms and they’ll eventually figure out ways to accommodate each other. There’s no need for coercion.

Previously:
The magic of politics
Why aren’t more bars smokefree?

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One more reason to skip Utah bars

by Jacob Grier on January 1, 2009

Oregon’s not the only state that put a smoking ban into effect today:

Bars in Utah smell different - a lot less smoky. Utah’s Indoor Clean Air Act - better known as the smoking ban - is now in effect.

On Wednesday, the inside of some Utah bars were filled with cigarettes and smoke. But on this first day of 2009 something’s not in the air. The cigarettes are still out due to habit but gone are the plumes of smoke.

To be honest, this is one smoking ban I just can’t get upset about. I would have thought Utah had banned smoking a long time ago. And people actually go to the bars there? Talk about burying the lede!

Previously:
Utah, future home of the Vieux Carré

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Saying hello to my new Oregon neighbors

by Jacob Grier on December 30, 2008

I’m in the Oregonian today, calling BS on the idea that our upcoming statewide smoking ban is motivated by an interest in saving workers’ lives. If the response is anything like that to my previous anti-ban column, there’s a lot of hate mail and nasty comments headed this way and to the Oregonian website. That’s fine, I’m happy to receive criticism. But before you hit send, make sure you’re not saying what we’ve all heard many times before:

Secondhand tobacco smoke is dangerous! — I agree. Chronic, extended exposure to environmental tobacco smoke has been shown to correlate with moderately greater health risks. But if you think the guy smoking next to you in a restaurant is shaving years off your life, you’re going way beyond what’s scientifically plausible.

Smoking shouldn’t be allowed in public buildings! — I agree. Courthouses, public hospitals, police stations, and similar places could all justifiably ban smoking. You could even make a case for banning smoking on common carriers like railroads and buses. But a privately owned bar? That’s a competitive business, not a public building. If you don’t like the atmosphere you don’t have to go.

Smoking bans are just like any other workplace safety regulation! — Most safety regulations don’t ban jobs entirely, as we’re now banning working in a smoke-friendly bar. Nor do we need to protect bar workers from hidden risks; if anything, the dangers of secondhand smoke are exaggerated. Given the high rates of turnover in the hospitality industry, there’s no reason employees can’t decide for themselves whether to keep working in smoke-filled rooms.

Smokers can just step outside — In the Oregon winter? Cigarette smokers, maybe. Pipe and cigar smokers? Not my idea of high fun. For many of us, bartenders included, the ban will kill a bar culture we know and love. Besides, you’re just going to ban it outside next (see Boston, San Luis Obispo, Calabasas, Belmont, etc.).

I shouldn’t have to suffer smokers when I go out! — Then go to places that don’t allow smoking. Or, as I mentioned in the column, pass legislation that’s less restrictive than the ban but that would still encourage businesses to go smokefree. Shouldn’t smokers have places to go too?

But the one place I really want to go allows smoking! — Yeah, that sucks. Try complaining to the management. If enough people say something they might change their policy. Or maybe they won’t. Remember, the world doesn’t revolve around you. (Unless you’re William Shatner, in which case the world does revolve around you, and can I have your autograph?)

Smoking has made you bald! — Uh, no. That’s just some unfortunate photo cropping on the Oregonian website. My mane’s still doing pretty well, thank you.

Got something to add that’s not on the list? Now you can hit send.

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An Oregon smoking ban prediction

by Jacob Grier on December 22, 2008

I’m supposed to be in Houston right now. Yesterday my bags were packed and, despite being skeptical that my plane home would depart on time, I trudged my luggage through the freshly fallen snow to the train that would take me to the airport. The train wasn’t running. I checked my phone and now neither was my flight. Thirty minutes on hold with Southwest booked me a new ticket on the 24th and three more days in a paralyzed city.

This is all mildly inconvenient for me, but it’s hell for people in the service industry. December is a vital month for them. Because of the record snowfall — the highest for a Portland December since 1968 — my bartender friends are being told not to come into work. Many places aren’t opening at all. Companies are canceling their Christmas party reservations, taking with them all the revenue they’d promised. Combine this with the national recession and 2008 is turning out to be a glum year for area bars and restaurants.

What does this have to do with smoking bans? Oregon’s goes into effect on January 1. By January 2010, the economic uncertainty we’re facing now will hopefully have subsided. And unless it’s another freak year for weather, December will bring its usual boost to Oregon restaurants. If that happens, smoking ban proponents will be able to cite statistics showing that bar and restaurant business went up after the smoking ban, “proving” that they were right and we who oppose the ban had nothing to worry about.

A similar dynamic played out in New York City in March, 2004, a year after the beginning of its smoking ban. The city’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene issued a report showing that the bar and restaurant business had grown in the year following the ban. Critics countered that the study misleadingly conflated bars and restaurants and neglected to account for the economic recovery following the 9/11 attacks.

Who’s right? I don’t know and I don’t care. As I’ve said before, this is a stupid argument. The financial objections to smoking bans aren’t based on how they affect net hospitality industry revenues, but on how they impact individual smoking-oriented businesses. Generalized statistics obscure the impact on bars that can’t get an exemption, lose customers, and justifiably feel like their rights are being trampled upon. It’s cold comfort to tell them to suck it up because, well, at least their competitors are making money.

If 2009 is a decent year for Oregon’s bars and restaurants, I predict that this is the kind of claim we’re going to hear from local ban supporters. I’d like to go on the record now to point out that such crude analysis should be seen for the irrelevant BS it truly is.

Previously:
Pipe down!
Taking the LEED on smoking bans

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The steady erosion of freedom

by Jacob Grier on November 20, 2008

Nick Gillespie’s excellent new video for Reason.tv examines how in the course of a decade smoking bans went from Californian absurdity to national trend:

In related news, Michael Kinsley raises the question of whether Barack Obama has truly quit smoking or not, rightfully concluding (after a bit too much fawning) that’s it’s the president’s business if he hasn’t. But I have to wonder: When Obama feels like lighting up, does he have to step outside? The White House is a public building, after all. It would be fitting to see the most powerful man in the country reduced to huddling beside a doorway like the rest of us common folk, forced out of comfortable surroundings by meddling bureaucrats.

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Taking the LEED on smoking bans

by Jacob Grier on October 14, 2008

My apartment hunt in downtown Portland yesterday brought unexpected frustration. As I strolled among modern high-rises with big balconies, surrounded by restaurants and coffee shops and independent specialty stores, I thought I’d found a perfect city for me. Yet time and again I was told that my kind are not welcome in these apartments: the residences are completely smokefree, inside and out.

I’m not a frequent smoker but I do think that enjoying a good cigar and a glass of whiskey with a close friend is one of life’s great pleasures. With Oregon’s ban on smoking in bars and restaurants coming into effect soon, my home will be one of the few places that I’m allowed to light up here. Being forbidden from enjoying a cigar or pipe even on my own deck or balcony is close to a deal breaker for me. Walking around the Pearl District yesterday, passing block after block of apartments where I would not be permitted to pursue my hobby, I felt for the first time what it’s like to be a minority facing discrimination. Admittedly I suffer for a lifestyle choice rather than for an immutable characteristic of my being, so I won’t pretend it compares to racial or sexual discrimination. But still, it was a new experience for this middle class white guy.

I assumed that these anti-smoking policies were how apartment buildings cater to West Coast nanny state types who have fantastically misinformed beliefs about the dangers of secondhand smoke. However much that might irk me, it would be hypocritical of me to deny them the right to live in the kinds of communities they prefer. I respect their rights of property and freedom of association, even if they won’t extend the same courtesy to smokers and business owners.

Then at one of these properties I learned that there’s actually another force at work. LEED certification, the seal of approval from the United States Green Building Council, now mandates that buildings be completely smokefree and ban smoking near doors and windows.

LEED stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design. In eco-conscious cities like Portland, it’s a marketing advantage to have a building LEED certified. Builders submit their designs to the USGBC, are given a checklist [pdf available here] of features the council looks for, and the number of items they can check off determines their LEED rating: Certified, Silver, Gold, or Platinum. Most of these items involve matters like energy efficiency, reusing materials, reducing water use, and other goals clearly related to environmental purposes. You might wonder what controlling residents’ smoking habits has to do with any of this. I certainly did.

It turns out that LEED certification considers six categories of evaluation, one of which is indoor environmental quality. If tobacco smoke is considered a pollutant, banning smoking is one way of addressing it. One could make a plausible case that LEED certified buildings shouldn’t allow smoking indoors, where habitual smokers could pump a lot of smoke into the ventilation systems. But in proximity to an exterior door? Or on a balcony? There’s absolutely no scientific justification for banning this. Walking by a smoker on the way into the lobby is not going to kill anyone. It’s annoying, perhaps, but it’s not a matter that needs to be addressed by green building codes.

Apparently LEED used to allow indoor smoking as long as adequate ventilation and filtering was provided. I’m not sure what led to the change, but an absolute prohibition on smoking is now a required item for certification. To put that into perspective, of the more than 70 items on the LEED checklist, only 7 are necessary prerequisites. In the indoor environmental quality category, increased ventilation, low-emitting materials use, thermal comfort, and outdoor air delivery monitoring are all optional. In other categories things like materials reuse, building with certified wood, managing refrigerants, using renewable energy, reducing water use, and minimizing the heat island effect are optional. For a project that’s primarily concerned with environmental protection, prioritizing outdoor smoking bans over these other concerns is strange indeed.

As I said before, I don’t object to leasing companies forbidding smoking if that’s what their customers want them to do. I do object, though, to the USGBC forcing bans onto anyone who wants to advertise their green building practices. Most people don’t know the details of what goes into the LEED checklist; they just want to know that a building is energy efficient, clean, and doesn’t waste resources. Banning smoking outdoors has nothing to do with that and muddles legitimate environmental concerns with restrictions on people’s personal behavior. Worse, it casts doubt on the merit of the USGBC’s other standards. If the organization has so little respect for scientific validity when it comes to smoking, it makes one wonder about the entire checklist. Is it guided by respectable science or by political correctness? Not being an expert in design, I have no way of knowing.

Update: In the comments, Matt D tracks down the full guidelines [pdf] and notes that LEED certification does allow for smoking in residential areas in certain proscribed circumstances:

OPTION 3 (For residential buildings only)
– Prohibit smoking in all common areas of the building.
– Locate any exterior designated smoking areas at least 25 feet away from entries, outdoor air intakes and operable windows opening to common areas.
– Minimize uncontrolled pathways for ETS transfer between individual residential units by sealing penetrations in walls, ceilings and floors in the residential units, and by sealing vertical chases adjacent to the units.
– All doors in the residential units leading to common hallways shall be weather-stripped to minimize air leakage into the hallway.
– If the common hallways are pressurized with respect to the residential units then doors to the residential units leading to the common hallways need not be weather-stripped provided that the positive differential pressure is demonstrated…

The third one seems like it might be the most restrictive, perhaps impractically so for high rise buildings with lots of shared ventilation. The priority given to anti-smoking measures by LEED standards still strikes me as out of touch with its mission. But it is in fact possible to get around a complete ban, and I thank Matt for the correction.

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Who knew?

by Jacob Grier on September 9, 2008

David Tufte at voluntaryXchange catches a bit of snobbish elitism in Jim Atkinson’s New York Times travel article about how there are actually some nice things in Texas. “Who knew?” he asks repeatedly. Here’s the line that stood out:

This may be just as well with some Amarillans, who are a culturally obstinate breed (many city restaurants still have smoking sections, for example).

Good heavens, allowing people to freely associate and do what they please together! How quaint and uncivilized these Texans are.

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Pharmacies, bars, what’s the difference?

by Jacob Grier on September 5, 2008

Michael Siegel writes this week about San Francisco and Boston’s forthcoming regulations to ban the sale of cigarettes in pharmacies:

According to the Globe article, the reason for the ban on tobacco sales at pharmacies and on college campuses is that selling tobacco is inconsistent with the mission of these institutions: “the city decided to target sales at the 74 pharmacies in Boston … because stocking tobacco, the leading cause of preventable death in the United States, is incompatible with the mission of a drugstore. ‘Why, in a place where people go to get healthy and get information about staying healthy, would you want to sell something that has absolutely no redeeming value and ends up killing a lot of people?’ said Ferrer, executive director of the Boston Public Health Commission.” [...]

[T]hese regulations are not going to advance any direct protection of the public’s health. They are not intended to directly improve the public’s health. Instead, the intention is to prevent certain retail establishments from taking an action that is viewed as being inconsistent with their mission. In other words, the regulation is intended not to regulate the public’s health, but to regulate the consistency of a mission of a store with its actions.

I just don’t see the role of government in regulating the consistency of stores’ mission and actions.

I agree. However the logic behind bans on smoking in restaurants and bars, measures that Siegel supports, isn’t very different. The laws assume that providing patrons with a place to smoke together is not essential to the mission of serving food and drink and can therefore be legislated away for the safety of the workers. If it was essential, then presumably employees would be allowed to assume the risks as they do in so many far more dangerous industries.

Allowing smoking is clearly part of the mission for many bars and restaurants. Some bans take this into account by allowing for exceptions, but these are usually far too strict. Some bans make no exceptions at all. This is coercive against smokers who can no longer find places to associate together, against business owners who can’t set their own policies, and against workers who may prefer that environment. If Siegel really values autonomy, this ought to be a concern for him.

(Note that opposing bans would still leave plenty of options on the table for reducing smoking in bars and restaurants, such as offering tax breaks to businesses that go smoke free. Opposing bans would not necessarily entail giving up on public health.)

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Op/ed in the Free Press

by Jacob Grier on May 15, 2008

I’m in the Detroit Free Press today making the case against Michigan’s proposed statewide smoking ban.

Previous smoking ban writing available here.

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Mixed news on PA smoking ban

by Jacob Grier on May 13, 2008

The good news: Pennsylvania’s legislature ground to a halt today in their attempts to pass a statewide smoking ban.

The bad news: It failed because it wasn’t strict enough and would have taken precedent over the more restrictive ban already in effect in Philadelphia.

I don’t have a clear opinion on whether these kinds of laws should be passed locally or on a state level, but I am very glad to be living in a Virginia, a state that actually bans smoking bans.

Previously:
Your Grand Old Party…

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No smoking in the shrubbery

by Jacob Grier on May 8, 2008

Here’s a story that combines anti-smoking nannies with overly zealous zoning enforcers in Eugene, OR, a town that up until now I had only good thoughts about:

The city of Eugene has fined the Horsehead bar $12,960 dollars for a row of arborvitae in the bar’s outdoor smoking area. The city’s smoking ordinance mandates that at least 75 percent of a smoking area be open to outdoor air, and, according to the city planning commission, that row of plants constituted a wall, violating the ordinance.

The owners of the Horsehead are understandably pissed, especially since they already spent $10,000 tearing down the old fence that used to enclose the area in an attempt to conform to the 2005 smoking ordinance. The new row of arborvitae was supposed to allow air to circulate and give patrons privacy from downtown Eugene’s omnipresent street kids and hobos.

That’s from the Oregon Commentator; the Register-Guard has the rest of the story. Though the bar owner knew he faced a potential fine from the council, he deserves credit for bringing attention to these increasingly stupid laws.

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