Posted on: Friday, February 22, 2002

Restaurant workers breathing easier

By Walter Wright
Advertiser Staff Writer

Michael Bright, a waiter at Kincaid's at Ward Warehouse, was happy the City Council approved legislation banning smoking in restaurants. Bright blames workplace smoke for a nagging cough. Bruce Asato • The Honolulu Advertiser

Michael Bright says the Honolulu restaurant smoking ban signed into law yesterday "is going to make a tremendous difference in my health" and the health of thousands of fellow workers here.

Bright is a waiter, and he and many other food and beverage workers were breathing a sigh of relief yesterday at the news that smoking will be banned in indoor restaurants effective July 1.

"It's my workplace and I have to be around it," he said, taking a break at Kincaid's Fish, Chop & Steak House at Ware Warehouse. "I go in and out of the smoking and non-smoking sections of the restaurant all the time. It gets in the napkins, in the walls, in the paint, everywhere."

He blames workplace smoke for a nagging cough.

Mayor Jeremy Harris, who signed the bill into law yesterday less than 24 hours after it passed the City Council by a 7-2 vote, revealed that both his parents were smokers who died from lung cancer, and that he is very allergic to cigarette smoke.

Harris said that despite his strong feelings against smoking, he had wanted to give the restaurant industry a chance to protect workers and customers from second-hand smoke. Their failure to do so persuaded him to sign the bill, he said.

Waiter Alex Nagata of Kaimuki said he is pleased with the new law even though he is a smoker.

"We made less money when we had a smoking section here in The Spaghetti Factory two years ago, because people didn't want to sit there," Nagata said. "I used to have a bad cough, because I'd always end up in the smoking section, and I was serving people's food and they were blowing clouds in my face."

City Councilman Duke Bainum, who co-sponsored the bill with long-time advocate City Councilman John Henry Felix, said apparent concern from the union that represents wait staff was also important.

Eric Gill, financial secretary of the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Local 5, with about 3,500 members in the food and beverage side of the business statewide, said the union didn't take a position on the legislation, but did lend its name to a State Health Department public education campaign.

In the resulting television spots, actresses portraying waitresses urged customers to ask for non-smoking sections.

"Working eight hours in here is like smoking a pack a day," the ad said, "and more of us die of lung cancer and heart disease than in any other woman's profession."

The total number of restaurant workers in Hawaii has been estimated at 48,300. Bainum said building managers asked the city years ago for smoking bans in their buildings, and that many restaurants this year gave up fighting.

"They didn't want the liability" that hit airlines when flight attendants successfully sued for damages from second-hand smoke, Bainum said.

Bainum, a physician, said study after study has implicated second-hand smoke with increased health risks for restaurant workers.

Research in Quebec found that working in a smoking area increased risk of fatal heart disease by 10 percent, and a Chicago study said waiters and bartenders in a smoking environment were 50 percent more likely to get lung cancer, he said.