Defiance: MT Smoking ban enforcement blasted

Are Great Falls ‘smoke shacks’ violating the Clean Indoor Air Act?
July 31, 2013
A group of Great Falls health advocates are accusing at least nine bars and casinos in that city of not being in compliance with Montana’s Clean Indoor Air Act.
The law prohibits smoking in public buildings and fully went into effect in 2009.
At issue are so-called ‘smoke shacks’ attached to the casinos. These ventilated rooms allow people to smoke, drink and use gaming machines. Bar owners are open-air vents in the rooms make them technically not indoor, enclosed, spaces.
Opponents say the shacks essentially serve as just another room of the bars themselves, exposing other customers to second-hand smoke. Stacy Campbell works as the Healthy Lifestyles Section Supervisor with the Montana Department of Public Health and Human Services. She said if the rooms are in considered in compliance with the clean indoor air act, they are out of compliance gambling laws.
“To have gaming machines it has to be enclosed and so for gaming purposes they are saying these structures are enclosed and for smoking purposes they are saying they’re a patio,” she said.
Lawyer Gregory Smith represents the owners of several of the bars with the smoking shacks. County Health Inspectors have given the OK to several of them. The owners say they meet international standards for ventilation in smoking lounges. Smith argued the rooms are a net positive for second-hand smoke.
“I’m sure wherever you are, you’ve experienced the, I guess I’ll be ironic, the joy of walking into a restaurant or a building and running the gauntlet of smokers out front—the non-smokers have to walk through there,” he said. “Now they don’t, now they’re separated.”
County Attorneys’ offices are responsible for enforcing the Clean Indoor Air Act. Smith’s clients are asking for a declaratory judgment from the Cascade County Attorney that the rooms are within the bounds of the law.
A hearing is scheduled for October.

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One year later, the smoking-ban debate still smolders
October 1, 2006
That’s an exemption for many bars and casinos, he said. The exemption expires in 2009, and that’s when any fight would begin to roll back the ban.
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Dec 23, 2005
By KEILA SZPALLER
Tribune Staff Writer

The owner of Cattin’s Family Dining in Great Falls says he’s losing business to competitors because the Cascade City County Health Department is failing to enforce the statewide smoking ban.

Pat Cattin put away the ashtrays in his 10th Avenue South restaurant on Oct. 1, when the ban took effect. But he says some businesses are violating the ban and the county isn’t pushing them hard enough.

“People that serve food that I compete with are allowed to cater to my smoking customers, and they’re winning them over,” Cattin said Thursday in a phone interview from Washington State, where he owns two other restaurants.

Namely, he cites the nearby R&R;, Rest & Relax Lounge.

The R&R; racked up three smoking-related complaints soon after the ban took effect, the county health department confirmed.

But Darrell Furan, an environmental scientist with the department, said the county has not investigated the alleged violations.

“We’re still just educating,” he said.

The R&R; is a string of two restaurants, a bar and a casino in one long building.

Smoking is allowed in the bar and casino, said owner Janet Haffner-Lynn.

In the restaurants, the R&R; allows smoking on the graveyard shift when kids aren’t around, she said.

But that is a violation of the ban, which prohibits children in establishments that allow smoking at any time, according to the state’s letter to the R&R.; The law does not allow for “smoking hours,” the letter says.

Haffner-Lynn said she intends to follow the law. But she said she isn’t making changes until the state sends her a copy of rules that explain exactly how the law works.

The rules have been available online for at least a month.

Enforcement of the smoking ban will play out differently across Montana, said Linda Lee, director of the Montana Tobacco Use Prevention program of the state health department, which administers the law.

The law says that after three confirmed violations in a three-year period, the county attorney will charge the owner or manager of an establishment with a misdemeanor and a $100 fine.

However, counties establish their own protocols for enforcing the law, Lee said.

“I know that Cascade County has been paying close attention to this,” she said.

However she said the three complaints should have triggered additional communication from the county to the R&R.;

“If there are that many complaints, other letters should have gone out,” she said.

Enforcement guidelines established by the state health department recommend that counties send out a letter of reprimand when a business racks up a second complaint.

Furan, though, said follow-up is a challenge. It’s hard to confirm that a violation actually happened, he said.

“What do we do? Stake (a business) out for three nights in a row and write them a warning letter? It’s just not that easy to do,” he said.

Cattin had strong words for the health department in a letter he e-mailed to the director late Wednesday.

“My restaurant in Great Falls and our employees’ jobs will be irreparably damaged if you do not do your duty and enforce the law,” he wrote. “…(W)e will be looking to your office and Cascade County to repair the financial damage your malfeasance and misfeasance is causing our businesses.”

Cattin has owned his Great Falls restaurant for more than 20 years.

“I have played by the rules and followed the laws,” he wrote in his e-mail to the county. “…Now we are faced with a battle we cannot win as long as you choose to not do your job.”

Cherry Loney, health department director, said she was tied up at home Thursday tending to a family member, and would not be able to respond the same day.

Furan said he was not in a position to respond to Cattin’s letter.

But he did talk about the smoking ban generally.

“This is about 1/15th of the work that I do, this smoking deal,” he said. “And it’s not a real gigantically high priority right now.”

The statewide smoking ban prohibits indoor smoking in most places. Generally, bars and taverns get four years to comply.

Cattin said he expected his restaurant to take a financial hit under the smoking ban, but he also said he expected a level playing field.

His restaurants in Washington are now helping float the one in Great Falls, he said.

Washington also kicked off a smoking ban, which took effect Dec. 8. Cattin said he isn’t losing customers in that state.

“That one is going just fine,” he said.
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