SEEKONK -- The Board of Health is taking initial steps toward considering a smoking ban in restaurants, bars, or both. The board agreed yesterday to meet with an advocate who influenced New Bedford's bar and restaurant ban on smoking.
Chairman Peter Matonis said the board is at the stage of looking at the most recent studies and comparing the smoking prohibitions on the books in other communities. He said he would like to look at not only regulations passed by Massachusetts cities and towns, but also Connecticut's statewide ban on smoking in restaurants, which took effect yesterday.
"Gathering information," Matonis said of where things stand. "Once they have a draft [regulation], they will have a public hearing," he said after yesterday's meeting.
Taking Health Agent Harold Chenevert's advice, the health board plans to hear from a representative of the New Bedford Smoke Free Alliance at its next meeting, on Oct. 22.
A typical worry among opponents of smoking bands is that banning smoking results in customers going elsewhere, such as Rhode Island, which does not have a statewide ban.
Board members debated yesterday whether a prohibition should be pursued from the vantage point of eatery employees -- who may have to work in a smoking section even if they don't like cigarettes -- or from the perspective of customers.
While the board is far from offering a proposal, members seemed to feel the it was better to approach the subject from the customer's point of view. The feeling was that a ban would cover employees as well, without getting mired in the debate over whether a ban on smoking for employees was something that only the federal Occupational Safety and Hazard Administration could rule on. Also, an employee smoking ban in eateries might trigger questions about how officials could then allow smoking for employees in other kinds of businesses.
But even as the town ponders further smoking limits, there are signs that Massachusetts may soon enact a statewide ban.
"If we truly expect a statewide law, are we just wasting a lot of man hours?" wondered board member Larry Thibert.
If the health board does propose a ban of some kind, the proposal will have to go to a public hearing.
Across the nation, after legal victories over the tobacco industry in the 1990s, communities began clamping down further on where people could light up. Smoking was banned in 1998 in Boston restaurants. Last year, the city and a coalition of some 20 suburbs shepherded through a smoking prohibition in all workplaces. That ban took effect in Boston in May this year.
To contact Mike McKinney, phone 508-674-8401 or e-mail mmckinne(at)projo.com.
