No More Smoking in Bars

Published on December 14, 2009 7:59 AM

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More and more bars and restaurants banned smoking. And finally next week a new anti-smoking law takes hold in Virginia, a state whose tobacco habit dates to the Jamestown settlement some 400 years ago.

So starting with December 1, Virginia will take part from dozens of other states that ban smoking in restaurants. Only restaurants in Virginia will be permitted to have a smoking area only if they isolate smokers into rooms with ventilation systems detached from those that heat and cool nonsmoking patrons.

In the past tobacco was Virginia's premier crop and economic staple. Frescoes of the golden-brown leaf decorate the ceiling of the Capitol rotunda, a short cab ride from the massive factory that provides the world with Marlboros.

Also this year, complete new curbs on lighting up where food and drink are sold were prohibited by lawmakers in Richmond and in Raleigh, N.C., major tobacco capitals where cigarette giants Philip Morris and R.J. Reynolds have been used to getting their way.

Fr example, North Carolina's law takes effect on January 2 and will allow smoking on outdoor patios and in private membership clubs, as does Virginia's law. Unlike Virginia, North Carolina law will not permit any smoking in restaurants.

Virginia restaurant industry lobbyist Tom Lisk said: "A number of them, because of that need in the law to make or build a separate room, don't have the wherewithal to do it, so they're just banning smoking altogether."

Some, like Williamsburg blues and jazz nightspot owner Randall Plaxa, decided to go smoke-free well ahead of the deadline. But for Maher Elmasri, the new changes are an unfair danger to his authentic hookah restaurant in Vienna. He is spending thousands of dollars on architects, engineers, builders and ventilation providers only for to keep the hookah - a tall, elegant water pipe popular in Arabic cultures.

"Am I sure I can stay in business? I don't know that I am confident. I just know that I have to do this to survive," said Elmasri, a Palestinian immigrant.

The American Lung Association showed that twenty-eight states and the District of Columbia have laws that ban restaurant smoking. Some of them exempt hookah lounges.

For the restaurant industry, Lisk explain that permitting isolate smoking rooms put small, family-owned places at a disadvantage to large vote chains. A total ban would be fine, he said, and many anti-smoking scientists agreed.

Researchers concluded that some of restaurants owners wanted to ban smoking, but not for competitive reasons. And smoking can be prohibited altogether knowing that very few competitors will spend the money necessary to offer a smoking area.