2004_0816_Packet - Laserfiche WebLink

Home

Page 7 Connecticutbanned smoking in restaurants effective October 1,2003, and extendedthe ban to bars on April 1,2004. Workplacesremain free of state restrictions. The ban exempts private clubs and the state's two casinos. While an analysis of the impact of this law has not yet been prepared, some Connecticut bar owners claim to have seen a drop of 60 percent in revenues as smokers flock to places where they can still light up while they ch�ink, and these owners are forming an alliance to fight for repeal of this measure. Maine implemented rull bans on smoking in restaurants and bars at the beginning of 2004, keepingworkplaces free of state intervention. Withinweeks of the ban's effective date, the Associated Press reported that many restaurant and bar patrons were driving across the border to New Hampshire or Canada in order to avoid standing out in the winter cold if they wished to light up. An unusual degree of oppositionhas arisen in Maine, with one former state representative going so far as to advise bar owners to file a class-action suit against the measure. New York Smoking Policy In August of 2002, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg signaled his intention to prohibit smoking in establishments that had been exempted from the City's earlier smolcing ban enacted in 1995. Free-standingbars, smaller restaurants, pool halls, bingo parlors and bowling alleys were now to be required to implement smoke free policies and environments. Predictably, there was much acrimony in the months that followed, as representatives of the city's 13,000 bars and smaller restaurants that had allowed smoking complained businesses would suffer, while public health advocates pushed the case for protectingthe tens of thousands of customers and workers in those establishmentsfrom second-hand smoke. By the end of the year, however, New York City had adopted its new law and businesses had three months to prepare their facilities and clientele for a smoke free environmentby the end of March 2003. Many bars and smaller restaurants took advantage of those three months to construct separate smoking areas and install costly ventilation systems that they anticipated would qualify them for exemptions from the ban, as had been negotiated. However, just days before the New York City ban was scheduled to go into effect, the New York State Legislature approved a statewide smoking ban in workplaces, including bars and restaurants, that was considerably more stringent than the City ordinance and superseded most of the exemptions that had been included in the City version. New York j oined just five other states - California, Delaware, Utah, Vermont and Maine - that had implemented smoking bans at that time, and the severity of its provisions was only surpassed by the Delaware law. Comprehensive economic evidence is difficultto assemble with respect to assessing the impact of this new law. In early December of 2003, eight months after the City's ban