O'ahu restaurants to be smoke-free on July 1

By Robbie Dingeman and Walter Wright
Advertiser Staff Writers

Restaurants on O'ahu will be virtually smoke-free on July 1, as the City Council yesterday passed a strict anti-smoking ordinance after failing on three previous tries.

Peter Metchikoff sees two sides of the smoking ban. As a smoker, he likes the convenience of having a cigarette in a restaurant, but as a waiter, he doesn't like being exposed to secondhand smoke all day. Bruce Asato • The Honolulu Advertiser

"There is no health issue that's more important to us than smoking," state Health Director Bruce Anderson testified yesterday before the council vote. "It kills people, and it kills a lot of people."

But Glenn Tanoue, co-owner of Tropic's Diner at the Ward Farmer's Market, said later: "It will cut my lunch business 10 to 20 percent. If I have to ban smoking when my place converts to a bar after 2 p.m., that's 80 to 90 percent of my customers."

Council members voted 7-2 in favor of the ordinance. John DeSoto and Rene Mansho cast the no votes.

State law prohibits smoking in most areas open to the public, although restaurants are permitted to have smoking and nonsmoking areas.

The county ordinance passed yesterday would take the state restrictions further. It would:

• Ban smoking inside restaurants on July 1. People may still smoke in outdoor dining areas.
• Ban smoking in restaurant bars on July 1, unless they are separately enclosed and ventilated, in which case people would be able to smoke until July 1, 2003.
• Continue to allow smoking in nightclubs and stand-alone bars.
• Define a stand-alone bar as a business where less than a third of gross annual sales are for food. In other words, people may still smoke in bars that sell pupu or other food, as long as those sales are less than one-third of total business.

Honolulu will join 300 other cities across the country with such severe restrictions, said Cynthia Hallett of Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights.

'The right thing'

	Smoking bill highlights
•	Ban smoking inside restaurants beginning July 1, 2002. Smoking would be allowed in outdoor dining areas.
•	Ban smoking in most restaurant bars beginning July 1, 2002, and all restaurant bars beginning July 1, 2003.
•	Continue to allow smoking in nightclubs and stand-alone bars.

Cachola said the bill was the right thing but not at the right time, because many restaurant businesses were suffering as a result of the tourism downturn since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Mansho said it was burdensome to business. DeSoto said it would be inconsistent for the council to pass a ban on smoking if it did not pass restrictions on alcoholic beverages — a measure he has sought since his son committed suicide after a night of heavy drinking.

Harris said he intends to sign the smoking bill into law, according to city spokeswoman Carol Costa. Harris said that he vetoed a similar measure in 1995 because he had been assured by the private sector that it would regulate itself but that did not happen.

At the time, Harris said such restrictions got government involved in business where it shouldn't be.

Industry opposition

The restaurant industry had long opposed the smoking ban, saying it would drive away many patrons, particularly Japanese tourists.

Pat McCain, president of the Hawai'i Restaurant Association, yesterday testified against the measure. He said he found it annoying that the state doesn't even enforce no-smoking laws at the State Capitol while the county is moving toward a measure that he hinted would be bad for businesses.

But Anderson said reports show that in other states and cities where similar smoking bans were enacted, tax revenues from restaurants remained the same or increased. That may be because while some smokers may have stayed away, nonsmokers found restaurants more inviting, he said.

For waiter Peter Metchikoff, a pack-a-day Marlboro man from Manoa, the smoking ban has a good side and a bad side.

The bad side is "it will inconvenience me when I want to go out to eat" because "when I want to have a cigarette, I'll have to go outside," Metchikoff said as he nursed a Budweiser with boiled peanuts, poke and pretzels at Tropic's Diner.

The good side, Metchikoff said, is at least he won't have to "breathe in that — all day long" at his restaurant job down the street.

Metchikoff, like many people interviewed after the council action yesterday, said he could live with the ban.

Tourist Dennis Riley, a safety consultant from Salt Lake City, said he doesn't think the ban will hurt tourism. "California has the same law, and it's not hurting them," he said at Ward Centres.

Ron Ragodos, manager at The Chowder House in Ward Warehouse, said business picked up after his restaurant voluntarily went smoke-free 2 1/2 years ago.

"The bar business fell off at first, but the family business in the restaurant came up."

Going outside

Ragodos doubted that even his Japanese tourist business will be hurt. "The visitors, they don't mind, they seem to expect it," he said. "If we tell them there's no smoking, they politely go outside to smoke.

"Maybe the ban will help us; if all the other places are non-smoking, maybe some of my customers will come back just for the food," he said.

Lee Brooke Roy, a light smoker who runs a children's store in Hale'iwa, said she didn't mind the ban. "It's convenient to be able to light up, sometimes I do when I am in a bar which also serves food," she said.

"But anytime a habit or anything someone does affects the health of other people, the decision should be made for the good of the whole," she said. "And secondhand smoke has been proven to be detrimental to health."

Stacy Ishii, a Tropic's waitress, said she doesn't mind the smoke she works in, because she is a smoker herself.

Don Markham of Kane'ohe, sitting with a table full of his pals at Tropic's, said "I'm a nonsmoker, I am pure, and the other people are contaminating me right now.

"But," Markham added firmly, "as long as the owner of this establishment doesn't mind it, if you don't like it, there's the door. ... It's the proprietor's prerogative."

Reach Robbie Dingeman at rdingeman@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8070 and Walter Wright at wwright@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8054.