Restaurant owners are unhappy that the smoking ban is being applied unevenly, while health advocates oppose new exemptions to certain establishments.

12:33 PM EST on Friday, February 18, 2005

BY SCOTT MAYEROWITZ
Journal State House Bureau

PROVIDENCE -- Bar and restaurant owners who oppose a smoking ban that takes effect March 1 got into a shouting match with health advocates at the State House last night.

The two sides were waiting to testify on a bill that would create new exemptions to the law. The law prohibits smoking in virtually every public place in the state, from restaurants to malls to bowling alleys.

The committee hearing was canceled because of an unusually long House floor debate. But that did not stop the debate.

The bar and restaurant owners were particularly upset with several exemptions to the smoking ban that legislators carved out last year as part of a compromise to pass the law.

"If they're going to do it, it should be for everybody across the board. They shouldn't play favorites," said Dennis Martel, owner of Goober's Hadwin Cafe, in Central Falls.

"If it was no smoking across the board, we wouldn't have a problem," added Patricia Gonyea, owner of Gonyea's Tavern, in Burrillville. "Now we're going to lose business because they can go elsewhere. It's discrimination."

One pub owner, Raymond Brooks, of Picasso's Pizza & Pub in Warwick, even went so far to announce that he was organizing other bar owners to challenge the law's constitutionality in the courts.

Brooks said he started the Neighborhood Pub Association of Rhode Island on Monday and already has 21 businesses signed on. He hopes to have 100 by the end of next week.

The outrage was in stark contrast to hearings last year where few people turned out to oppose the ban.

Margaret Kane, executive director of the American Lung Association of Rhode Island, said the fear of losing customers is "unfounded simply because of the experience in other states."

"There may be an initial shock, as there was in other states, but we believe that it's going to come back," Kane said. "It is certainly not our intent to put anyone out of business."

She said the legislation will reduce business owners' exposure to liability lawsuits from employees, lower fire insurance premiums and reduce cleaning costs.

Miriam Plitt, chair of the American Heart Association's Rhode Island board of directors, said in a letter to the committee that the group "wanted nothing less than to protect all workers in all worksites. We didn't want one group of workers to feel less valued or lower class because they won't be protected."

But she said, the group agreed to the legislative compromise "for the greater good."

The law -- sold as a measure to protect employees -- prohibits smoking in just about every public enclosed space.

Lawmakers permanently exempted Lincoln Park and Newport Grand from the ban, fearing that the state would lose millions of dollars from the video slot machines there. Lincoln and Newport are expected to generate $255 million for the state this year.

Brooks said the two slot parlors have bars with large-screen televisions, offer entertainment besides gambling and have full-service restaurants.

"This is not lottery. This is a direct competition to any restaurant," Brooks said. "It's absolutely insane."

Lawmakers also exempted some small bars and private clubs with class C and D liquor licenses until Oct. 1, 2006. The class C and D facilities must have 10 or fewer employees to be exempt.

Class D establishments -- such as a Knights of Columbus hall -- are exempt as they are nonprofit or charitable corporations with a defined membership and "not ordinarily a place of public accommodation."

There are about 35 class C license holders in the state and about 275 class D facilities. Exactly how many of them would fit the exemption is not clear.

The crowd of more than three dozen had gathered to testify on a bill by House Labor Chairman Joseph L. Faria, D-Central Falls. Faria's bill would permanently exempt any bar that does not serve food from the ban.

No new date is set for the hearing, but Faria said he would reschedule it "within the next few weeks." The legislature's winter break is next week, making it very likely that the smoking ban will take effect before the bill gets a hearing.

Even if the bill makes it to the House, Majority Leader Gordon D. Fox, D-Providence, who sponsored the ban last year, has said he is "loath to try to change it."

There is not much backing in the Senate or from Governor Carcieri either.

Senate President Joseph A. Montalbano, D-North Providence, said yesterday through his spokesman: "I predict very little support for that bill in the Senate. It just took too long to accomplish the health benefits of the . . . act to now take a step backwards."

Carcieri spokesman Jeff Neal said the governor "stands firmly behind the workplace smoking ban that he signed into law last year."

Sen. V. Susan Sosnowski, D-South Kingstown, who sponsored the Senate version of the bill, said yesterday it should go into effect the way it was passed.

"Let's see how it works out," she said. "I think it is just too soon to be changing it. We haven't given it a chance yet."

Digital Extra: Read the legislation passed last year enacting the smoking ban starting March 1, which also shows the changes from the previous law, at:

http://projo.com/news/pdf/2004smokingban.pdf