Smoking ban in Boise bars, parks looms

More than 600 cities across the country, including El Paso, Texas; Corvallis, Ore; and New York City already ban smoking in bars.
Boise may follow suit if proposed Smoke Free Air Ordinances are approved.
The ordinances will be on the table Tuesday at a City Council work session. If passed, they will add new restrictions to state laws that already ban smoking in public areas like restaurants, elevators and most workplaces. The entire Boise State campus is smoke-free.
Along with bars, the ordinances would prohibit smoking in other places where people work and gather, including home-based businesses and tobacco shops.
The city says public sentiment is on its side.
A Boise City 2010 Citizen Survey found that approximately 70 percent of Boise residents agree the city should ban smoking in all indoor public places, including bars.
Others disagree.
“People come in, ask if they can smoke, sit down, and read a magazine,” said Stan Minder. The owner of Hannifin’s Cigar Shop, a city institution for more than a century, isn’t a smoker himself. But he wants his customers to be able to enjoy their conversations and tobacco.
“So many places have banned smoking already,” Minder said, adding that customers have to be 18 to come through his door. “When people come into a smoke shop, they know what they’re coming into.”
People love the old-time cigar-box scent of Hannifin’s, he said.
Some local bars, like Pengilly’s in Downtown Boise and the Crescent Bar on the Boise Bench, are ahead of the curve and have gone smoke-free voluntarily.
Customers smoked their last cigarette inside the Crescent in August. Owner Butch Morrison said he’s been anticipating a smoke ban for a long time.
Local anti-smoking advocates have worked for a ban in bars for several years. Council members Elaine Clegg and Alan Shealy got the council to start the process for developing a smoke-free ordinance back in December.
“Pretty soon, you get to the point that people won’t go out if you keep restricting things they want to do. But it’s kind of like you can’t fight City Hall,” said Morrison. “And we wanted to be part of the solution.”
The smoke ban hasn’t hurt his business. Fewer smokers mean more people come to the bar to order food, he said.
Smoking is still allowed on the Crescent’s outdoor patio — and would be OK under the new ordinance, which allows for smoking on privately owned outdoor patios designated for those 21 and older.
Places like bowling alleys, with separate, designated areas for inside smoking, would be out of luck.
Other bars are joining Hannifin’s side and are staunchly against the ban. It would hurt their ambiance, they say.
“People know that when they come to the 44, it’s a smoky bar,” said Jody Ciancia. She’s tended bar at the 44 Club on State Street for seven years.
She estimates that about 80 percent of the bar’s regular customers are smokers. She smokes and doesn’t like the idea of bar patrons having to stand outside in the winter to enjoy their cigarettes.
“Smoke is what makes the 44. A little, tiny, dark bar that’s been here forever,” said Ciancia.
Clegg and Shealy say they both grew up in families with smokers and suffered ill effects from secondhand smoke.
Clegg cited a recent study that shows the effects of secondhand smoke are more dangerous than previously thought.
“Safe workers are our primary focus,” she said.
Shealy said the economic costs of smoking are dire for Idahoans. The Centers for Disease Control estimate that the annual health care costs in Idaho directly caused by smoking total $319 million a year.
Enforcement of the proposed ordinances would rely more on compliance than on issuing tickets, said city spokesman Adam Park.
For example, if someone lights up in a bar, is asked to put out his cigarette and does, or leaves, he won’t be ticketed.
In cases where violators are ticketed, they’ll face a $69 fine.
Employers who knowingly permit smoking in prohibited areas would be fined $119.
The proposed ordinances also would extend the smoking ban to city parks and the Greenbelt. Fifty-three percent of respondents to the city’s 2010 survey were in favor of that idea.