OMAHA, Neb. — Omaha business owners are checking the rule books to see whether a new city smoking ban will affect them right away, or whether they will be an exception.
The Omaha City Council passed the smoking ban on Tuesday, which will eventually include 97 percent of Omaha businesses. Some, including City Councilman Frank Brown, wonder whether exemptions written into the law are creating an unfair playing field in the first five years of the law.
Steve Branecki owns the Lighthouse at 156th Street and West Maple Road. For the moment, his property has not been annexed by the city of Omaha, but it is right on the line, so Branecki is following developments as the city’s smoking ban is interpreted. For the moment, the Lighthouse can let customers light up, while some bars across the street in the city limits won’t be able to.
“As a bar owner, it plays a lot of impact on our clientele and our business,” Branecki said. “I’d like to think it would help us out a little bit, but I don’t think it’s fair to be separating anything in that fashion.”
The Phoenix Food and Spirits is inside the city at 120th and Blondo streets. Bar manager Darrel Brisby said he believes the Phoenix falls into an exemption for the moment because it offers keno, and keno parlors have five years to comply.
Still, Brisby said, a clear-cut law for everyone would be preferable.
“It’s like, if they’re going to do this, do it across the board, across the state. Make everybody suffer the same consequences,” Brisby said.
There are 160 other keno outlets in Omaha.
Neither Brisby nor Branecki said they support a ban.
“If they don’t like someplace with smoking, then why go there, go somewhere else that has it,” Brisby said.
“I think the majority of people are nonsmokers, but 40 percent of bar people are smokers,” Branecki said. “If I lose 40 percent of my business, I don’t have a business.”
Other exemptions include bars that do not serve food and Horseman’s Park. Those, too, have to be smoke-free in five years.
City Clerk Buster Brown said businesses can’t add keno in order to skirt the law. If the business didn’t have it before June 8, they must comply with the smoking ban when it goes into effect. There were about a dozen businesses that signed up right before the deadline, Brown said.
The ordinance establishes penalties for those who would violate the smoking ordinance. Smokers ticketed by Omaha police would be fined $100 on their first offense, $200 on the second offense and $500 if he or she is caught smoking a third time.
A business owner would get a warning the first time somebody lit up in his or her establishment, then the fines advance from $100 to $500 for subsequent offenses.
Mayor Mike Fahey has yet to announce whether he will veto or sign the ordinance. Chief of Staff Paul Landow said that the mayor met with members of the Omaha Medical Society on Wednesday. He will not announce a decision until Thursday at the earliest.
