Smokers have to deal with a lot these days. Dirty looks from the pure-lunged come at any moment: lighting up outside Dallas Hall, standing too close in a crowded frat house or exhaling next to a non-smoking table.
Now those smoke-free diners are plotting their revenge.
The Dallas city council has long toyed with the idea of making Dallas restaurants entirely smoke-free. Now it may get off its hands and do something. Last week smoking opponents held a City Hall news conference attended by chairwoman of the council’s Health, Environment and Human Services Committee, Lois Finkelman.
Finkelman has a permanent seat on the smoke-free bandwagon. In the past, her committee has unsuccessfully attempted to strengthen smoking ordinances.
Now Finkelman & Co. think they have a winner.
The city’s Environmental Health Commission recommends restaurants put up walls or install separate ventilation systems to keep smoke from drifting into nonsmoking dining areas. Those ventilation systems might cost too much for some smaller restaurants to install. They cost between $1,500 and $5,000 per unit, and most restaurants require two. Expensive and unnecessary.
Even doctors from the Smoke-Free Dallas Coalition said ventilation systems don’t reduce enough of the feared toxic carcinogens in secondhand smoke. To fix the problem, they want to slap an all-inclusive smoking ban on restaurants, leaving smokers, again, out in the cold.
Perhaps those doctors would like to give up their high-polluting SUVs and save everyone’s lungs, as well as the ozone. Everyone has to breathe the air outside. Why not focus on cutting emissions?
Dallas should take a good look at Carrollton before it passes anything. The city banned smoking in 1994 – with negative results. Several establishments lost business. Incoming restaurants avoided the suburb, building in neighboring cities. Now Carrollton requires a separate smoking room and extra air filtration.
As for the Greater Dallas Restaurant Association, which serves as an advocate for restaurateurs – they think things are fine right now. Currently, the city requires a buffer of four feet between smoking and nonsmoking dining areas. The city received fewer than 30 complaints about the smoking ordinance in 1999, most of which were workplace-related, not diner-related.
Most smokers already have to face the smog on patios since restaurants like Greenville’s Blue Goose use smoke-free dining rooms during lunch. The committee wants to kill the leniency establishments like the Goose extend their patrons during dinner.
Smokers eat and drink just like everyone else. They are human and deserve fair treatment – just like nonsmokers. Many establishments already restrict smoking severely. Ed Board doesn’t want smoking allowed in every bathroom, classroom and department store. Just let us dirty our lungs after a good meal or a few drinks – legally.
