Businesses prep for smoking ban
Published Dec. 8, 2006
Shakespeare's Pizza Marketing Director Kurt Mirtsching said he grew up with parents who chain-smoked in the car during the winter while driving cross-country. On Jan. 8, the day before the Columbia smoking ban takes effect, he plans to buy 20 cartons of cigarettes and place a pack in each ashtray Shakespeare's has.
"My question of the day will be, 'menthol or regular?'" Mirtsching said.
Businesses in Columbia have only a month left before the Columbia smoking ban that passed in early October takes effect. One argument in favor of the ban is that bar and restaurant owners should not be worried about the ban hurting their establishments financially because the citywide ordinance must be followed by all businesses. But not everyone believes the ban will leave him or her unscathed.
"I don't think it's any of the City Council's business," Booches Co-owner Rick Robertson said. "It's my business and my customers. If I thought going non-smoking would help my business, I'd do it in a heartbeat."
Boone Tavern Operations Director Nina Sturtevant said she is not worried about the smoking ban even though half of the Boone Tavern employees smoke. Because Boone Tavern has a patio where patrons of the restaurant can smoke, she thinks the restaurant will have an easy transition into a non-smoking establishment.
Robertson, on the other hand, believes the ban will hurt his business. The sign in front of Booches reads, "No smoking after January 9. They'll be banning cold beer next, and hopefully, karaoke."
Robertson said he still thinks people will end up trying to smoke in his establishment, but declined to comment on whether he would enforce the ordinance or not.
"We had a system that was working," he said. "A lot of restaurants and bars are already non-smoking, but one of the pleasures of life is coming here to have a beer, a burger and a smoke, and now they're taking that away. The next thing you know, they'll want bike paths around my pool tables so people can exercise."
The Blue Fugue plays host to a hookah night every Tuesday, but owner Anthony Butler is still not worried about losing business because of the smoking ban. Butler is from Worcester, Mass., a city that has had a no-smoking policy in public places for three years, and believes the smoking ban represents the coming of a different culture.
"It's not a question of losing the hookah business," Butler said. "It will eliminate the business of hookah smoking completely, but I'm not worried. If anything, it will increase bar business because people who are addicted to tobacco will end up impulse-consuming because they can't smoke. Also, people that don't smoke will come out because they won't be repulsed by the odor and whatnot. People stay home because of smoke, but others don't go out to smoke."
Even with Mirtsching's big plans for Shakespeare's on Jan. 8, he remains indifferent on the decision to ban smoking.
"On the one hand, we all need to quit smoking," he said. "On the other hand, people should be able to do what they want. I have conscientiously decided to have no opinion because, really, we all need to quit anyway."
