10 years after smoking ban, percentage of bars and restaurants using exemption has doubled
Jun 26, 2015
By Andy Miller ATLANTA | Ten years ago, the Georgia legislature passed a law prohibiting smoking in bars and restaurants. It was promoted as a way to improve “the health, comfort and environment” of Georgians.
The law, still in effect, has some exemptions, including allowing smoking in an establishment if it prohibits entry to anyone under age 18.
Despite the 2005 law, a recent study from Georgia State University found some surprising results on smoking.
Researchers found that the percentage of Georgia restaurants and bars allowing smoking nearly doubled in the first six years after the law’s passage.
Georgia State researchers also found a significant number of owners taking advantage of exemptions in the law.
The percentage of restaurants and bars in Georgia that allowed smoking rose from 9.1 percent in 2006 to 17.6 percent in 2012, according to the study, published last month in the journal Preventing Chronic Disease: Public Health Research, Practice and Policy.
The study did not address growth in smoking in Georgia bars and restaurants since 2012.
“I have no reason to think that things have changed,” Michael Eriksen, an author of the study, told Georgia Health News.
“While the law is well known and well accepted, restaurants have figured out how to work within the law and allow smoking,” said Eriksen, dean of the School of Public Health at Georgia State.
Researchers found “a significant increase in the percentage of establishments that allow smoking when minors are present,” most likely in designated smoking areas and outdoor patios. Bars and restaurants can allow smoking if designated smoking areas are outdoors or in rooms with separate ventilation systems.
Manuel’s Tavern, a famous Atlanta establishment frequented by politicians and journalists, allowed indoor smoking to continue after the law’s passage, using the adults-only exemption.
But at the beginning of 2014, Manuel’s went in the opposite direction, removing ashtrays and prohibiting indoor smoking.
Brian Maloof, the owner, said Wednesday that the reaction “has been very positive.”
“People say, ‘I can finally come in here because there’s no smoking.’ ”
But Maloof added, “Had I done it five years earlier, I think it would have been bad for business.”
June Deen of the American Lung Association said Wednesday that the Georgia State study “is truly alarming.”
She said a probable lack of enforcement of the 2005 law would factor into the growth of indoor smoking.
“I think there has been a lot less discussion on secondhand smoke,” Deen said. “The people who are the most harmed are the workers in these establishments. They are people who may not have a lot of employment options.”
Secondhand smoke is especially damaging “to the very young and the very old,” she noted.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says there is no risk-free level of exposure to secondhand smoke, which contains more than 7,000 chemicals.
Since the landmark 1964 Surgeon General’s Report on tobacco, 2.5 million adults who were nonsmokers died because they breathed secondhand smoke, the CDC says.
Exposure causes numerous health problems in infants and children, including more frequent and severe asthma attacks, respiratory infections, ear infections, and sudden infant death syndrome. Adults can face coronary heart disease, stroke, and lung cancer.
The GSU researchers urged policy-makers to strengthen the Georgia law by making restaurants and bars 100 percent smoke-free, without exemptions.
They said Georgia is one of only 15 states that do not have a 100 percent smoke-free restaurant or bar law.
Smoky air: Zero complaints, multiple hideouts following ban
April 23, 2015
Nate Harris Allie Dean @grtgbln @aedean8
It’s quiet on the second-floor alcove of the journalism building. There is shelter, benches and a grassy area to sit and relax in the middle of one of the busiest places on campus.
It’s also hidden from faculty and administration and a prime place for smoking cigarettes, which were forbidden on campus after the University System of Georgia Board of Regent’s tobacco ban went into effect on Oct. 1.
But this isn’t the only hideaway where smokers congregate. A trip behind Park Hall revealed dozens of cigarette butts disposed on the ground, now that the ashtrays have been removed. The same goes for Baldwin Hall.
Here, Amber LaFond comes often to smoke a cigarette between classes.
“I go behind Baldwin sometimes, but really just wherever my next class is,” said LaFond, a junior social work major from Covington. “I just stand off to the side. Nobody really says anything, and if they do, they’re just being an ass.”
LaFond, like many others smokers around campus, said she doesn’t care that she is violating policy. And based on the lack of filed complaints, many non-smokers don’t care either.
Or at least, they don’t care enough to file a report. Since Oct. 1, no smokers have been reported to the Office of Student Conduct.
“I don’t think it’s worth the effort,” said Andrea Schipper, a freshman dietetics major from Augusta.
Tom Jackson, vice president for public affairs at the University of Georgia, said enforcement is largely up to students.
“Our advice all along has been that if you see someone smoking, walk up to them, inform them of the policy and ask them to stop,” he said. “If they refuse or are repeatedly in the same place doing the same thing, then that’s the time to file a complaint.”
But students said they don’t think reporting smokers would do any good.
“I often feel like I should report them, especially if I see it happening outside of my residence hall,” said Julia Vollmer, a freshman biological science education major from Long Island, New York. “But the sad fact of the matter is that many people don’t take the policy seriously and therefore reporting them would be meaningless as it wouldn’t stop them.”
Stan Jackson, director of student affairs communications and marketing iniatives, said no action would be taken if a report was made.
“We don’t have a process for that yet, just because there is not a protocol for sanctions tied to the ban,” Stan Jackson said. “Because we’ve had zero complaints, it hasn’t been tested.”
Tom Jackson said the policy was adopted statewide by the Board of Regents as an educational tool.
“Campuses teaching public health and medicine should practice what they preach,” he said.
And while no one has been reported, some student and faculty said they believe the ban has changed smoking habits on campus.
Tom Jackson said he personally has “rarely seen anyone smoking on campus – certainly less than 1 percent.”
Schipper said she thinks the ban is creating hideouts for smokers.
“I think the ban is at least forcing people to be more discreet about it, therefore making secondhand smoke less of a problem,” Schipper said. “I supported the ban from the beginning because it helps make the air cleaner. It was really annoying to be walking to class and having to be caught on the sidewalk behind someone smoking, and that doesn’t happen anymore.”
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Comment:
UGA is not alone in this. If you wander around to the campus newspaper sites around the country where bans have been implemented you will find instance after instance where it is either being reported on as being ignored or where antismoking students complain that it is not being enforced. These bans are usually the result of political pressures or funding blackmailing, and once they’re on the record no one really cares about them.
In terms of annoyance, the only case where anyone could feel “trapped” by smokers would be going in or out of a doorway where a cluster of them are hanging out. No one forces people to continue walking a foot or two behind a smoker, following them around the campus. If I was behind a couple who were having a nasty lovers’ spat, I’d simply slow down a bit or stop for a second to adjust my clothing or some such so they’d move five or ten feet further ahead. It’s hard to imagine how anyone disturbed enough about such a situation to complain about it wouldn’t think of doing the same.
In terms of those doorways and secondary smoke by the way, I actually examined the figures from the EPA Report that’s used as a basis for so many of these bans, and found that, after correcting for intensities and durations of exposure, and assuming that one has to run through a “gauntlet of smokers” every single day at some point at a classroom building, it would take, on the average, somewhere around 250 MILLION student-years of exposure in order to produce a single case of lung cancer.
I’ve heard of professional grad students… but that’s pushing it a bit.
Michael J. McFadden
Author of “Dissecting Antismokers’ Brains”
