On Tuesday it will be illegal to smoke in virtually every public place in the state, except Lincoln Park and Newport Grand.

01:02 AM EST on Sunday, February 27, 2005

BY SCOTT MAYEROWITZ
Journal State House Bureau

Every day on his way home from work, Rod McCaughey stops by the Knightsville Pub for a few beers.

And like everybody else in the small neighborhood bar, he also has a few cigarettes.

"Drinking and cigarettes -- it's a social thing for me, and they just seem to go hand-in-hand," the 51-year-old machinist said last week from his stool at the Cranston bar. "This is my relaxation. You work all day. There's no smoking in my work environment. This is how I relax. This is how I finish my day."

But starting Tuesday, McCaughey and thousands of other smokers statewide will have to step outside if they want to light up. Under a new state law, smoking will be prohibited in virtually every public place, including bars, restaurants, bowling alleys and even Little League fields.

For many Rhode Islanders, this means cleaner air, lower dry-cleaning bills and the opportunity to frequent bars that were once too smoky to enter.

For McCaughey and the other patrons of the Knightsville Pub, it means the end of a way of life, and they consider it a major infringement on their rights.

"When I decide to quit, I'll quit," McCaughey said. "I don't want you to tell me -- not on something I'm taxed on."

Journal photo / Connie Grosch

On Tuesday, it will be illegal to smoke in virtually every public place in the state, except Lincoln Park and Newport Grand.

Patron after patron at the small Cranston pub talked about the ban in terms of their rights, citing the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution in between puffs on their cigarettes.

Some say it sounds like Communism. They hint at revolt, talking about the Boston Tea Party. Cigarettes are, after all, heavily taxed.

A few bar stools away, Gregory Rich, 63, talks about his 23 years serving the United States in the Army. He went to Vietnam, Panama, Germany, Lebanon and Grenada, and now the government -- albeit the state one -- wants to take away his right to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

The General Assembly passed the ban in June, and Governor Carcieri signed it into law. The issue, like most laws, never went before the voters.

"It was shoved down our throat," said Rich. "This is still the United States of America, and the people have a voice and a vote. And the people did not have a voice or vote in this."

If he can't smoke at the Knightsville Pub -- or any other bar -- next week, Rich says he won't go out.

"I guess I'll go to the liquor store, grab a six-pack and go home," he said.

That worries Richard Russillo, who has owned the pub for the last five years, and Kelly J. Watterson who has been a bartender there for the last two.

"The bartenders that complain, they shouldn't be bartenders. They knew that people smoke," Watterson said.

Customers won't go outside to smoke in the dead of winter or on rainy days, she said.

"They might as well get in their cars and go home," Watterson said. "I just know I'm going to lose money."

The solution, they say, is to allow businesses a choice but require them to post signs at the entrance declaring themselves smoking or nonsmoking.

"We're a free country. They're supposed to have a choice," Watterson said.

Russillo notes that virtually every customer smokes. The customers know what they are getting into when they walk through the door.

"I would be offended if I was sitting at a restaurant eating and you were blowing smoke in my face," he said. "But this is a bar. This is a neighborhood bar where people want to come and unwind after work."

RHODE ISLAND'S ban prohibits smoking in just about every enclosed public space. Since most offices, malls and movie theaters are already smoke free, the industry that will see the greatest impact is restaurants and bars.

For years, restaurant owners had opposed such a ban. The Rhode Island Hospitality and Tourism Association, repeatedly testified against measures to prohibit smoking. But last year, the group changed its stance and backed the law.

The state's labor unions also backed the measure, which was billed as a workplace safety law. Business owners also were told that allowing smoking could open them to workers' compensation lawsuits.

But negotiations and compromises were needed to get the legislation passed.

Key House members wanted to see some local pubs protected, so a temporary, 18-month, exemption was made for class C and D liquor license holders. Veterans of Foreign Wars posts and country clubs hold Class D licenses. Thirty five neighborhood bars around the state hold Class C licenses. Two thirds of those bars are in Providence.

The state's two gambling facilities -- Lincoln Park and Newport Grand -- told legislators that when Delaware's smoking ban went into effect in November 2002, the state's gambling facilities saw a 12.4-percent drop in business. Fearing that the ban might cut into the hundreds of millions of dollars that the state gets each year from the two gambling venues, lawmakers decided to permanently exempt them. Cigar bars are also exempt.

FOR THE past 30 years, Margaret Kane, executive director of the American Lung Association of Rhode Island, has been fighting to ban smoking in the workplace.

Secondhand cigarette smoke has been classified by the federal Environmental Protection Agency as a class A carcinogen, like asbestos and radon.

When Kane sees a room full of smokers, she pictures people inhaling asbestos.

"Would we not . . . restrict people's ability to blow asbestos into the air -- even if everybody was doing it," Kane asked.

Working an eight-hour shift in a smoky bar is the same as smoking 16 cigarettes, Kane said, and it is about time the state stepped in to protect people.

"People may not think that they are hurting other people," Kane said. "They are certainly hurting people who may not have a choice, who are working at the bar -- the bartender."

FURTHER, EACH YEAR, $396 million is spent in Rhode Island on health care that is directly related to tobacco, according to the state Department of Health. This covers everything from doctor visits to medications to chemotherapy.

Another $283 million is estimated to be lost statewide in worker productivity because of smoking, the state says.

"There is a cost that we are all bearing for people continuing to smoke," Kane said. "If we had the man on the street voting on this, it would have gone through a long time ago."

Prohibiting smoking in public places will significantly decrease the number of people who smoke.

The Department of Health estimates that 22.2 percent of all adults in Rhode Island are smokers -- that's about 173,000 adults. In addition, about 17 percent of students in Rhode Island's public high schools smoke -- about 8,250 kids.

Each year 200 people in Rhode Island die from secondhand smoke.

"Just because of the social change that this creates, it is going to do more to have people quit smoking than probably all the health education that we provide," Kane said. "In some ways I guess we're taking the candy away, but the candy is killing them."

RHODE ISLAND will become the seventh state in the country to go smoke free.

California was the first state to pass a comprehensive smoking ban in 1994, with restaurants going smoke free in 1995 and bars and taverns in 1998.

Delaware was the second state to pass a comprehensive ban in 2002. Maine, which banned smoking in restaurants in 1999, added bars to the ban last year. In 2003, New York a ban went into effect. Also that year Connecticut passed legislation that phased in a ban, and most recently a smoking ban took effect in Massachusetts in July.

In 2003, Florida voters approved a ban in restaurants, but not bars. Utah, Vermont and Idaho also prohibit smoking in restaurants. Many municipalities have their own bans.

The smoke-free movement is gaining momentum internationally. People can no longer light up in Irish pubs or have a smoke in an Italian cafe. Even Cuba, long known for its premium cigars, banned smoking in all public places earlier this month.

The argument had long been that a smoking ban would devastate business at restaurants and bars.

But as more states prohibited smoking, the data showed that businesses were not hurt, according to Kevin O'Flaherty, director of government relations and advocacy for the American Cancer Society in Rhode Island.

"Generally, every city and every state has done this, during the first month that a law goes into effect there is a little bit of a hiccup," O'Flaherty said. "The smokers stay home or they're just mad about it. But eventually people come back or people who haven't been going out in a long time because of the smoke start heading out more."

A report done for the Massachusetts Department of Health in 2000 showed that local communities with smoking bans in restaurants saw a slight increase in business over communities without such bans. Massachusetts health advocates say it is still too early to review hard data on the statewide ban.

In New York state, the number of bars increased 3.5 percent during the first year after the ban took effect June 23, 2003, according to a 284-page report by the New York Department of Health.

In New York City, the results are even more dramatic.

In restaurants and bars, tax receipts were up 8.7 percent and 10,600 new jobs were created, according to a city study reviewing the first year of the smoking ban.

In addition, according to the American Lung Association, 100,000 people in New York City quit smoking in that year -- an 11 percent decline in the number of smokers.

AL FORNO Restaurant in Providence has been smoke free for almost 15 years.

When the decision was made to prohibit smoking, many customers said it would put the restaurant out of business, according to Brian Kingsford, chief of operations and executive chef.

"It was the furthest thing from the truth. Business increased," Kingsford said. "It's hard to say why the business increased, but businesses definitely increased for us steadily year after year. So the one thing that they said was going to happen -- where we were going to lose business -- never happened."

The majority of taste comes from our sense of smell, Kingsford said, and smoking numbs your sense of taste.

"If New York and Boston can do it, there is no reason why Rhode Island can't."

Kingsford, a nonsmoker, said that he can't wait for the ban.

Often when he goes out to other places, he said, "you leave and your whole body smells like cigarettes."

"You can smell your clothes all over the house," he said. "It permeates your entire house, and you just want to put them in a plastic bag and get rid of them, bring them to the dry cleaner, something."

Tom Desmond, manager of Brick Alley Pub & Restaurant in Newport, which went smoke free two years ago, also says business increased after the change.

"We have a lot of smokers come in and they're quite comfortable going outside and smoking," he said.

A few customers were unhappy about the change.

"We probably lost a couple that decided that smoking was more important to them. But there were other people that used to not come into our bar or restaurant because they had to walk through a smoking section," Desmond said. "The compliments far outweighed the complaints."

Twin Oaks in Cranston banned smoking in the dining room more than 10 years ago but continued to allow it in the bar.

General Manager Donald Rachiele said he is not afraid of losing customers.

"We might a lose a few, but I don't think so," Rachiele said. "We've been talking to our patrons for the last couple of months, and they're going to deal with it. If they have to run out to their car and have a cigarette, so be it."

He said the vast majority of his employees are happy about the new law.

"The ones that do smoke," he said, "they have positive attitudes because it's kind of giving them an excuse to quit. They figure, if they can't smoke for eight hours during your shift, why light up again?"

All about the smoking ban

Q: When does the ban go into effect?

A: March 1 at midnight.

Q: What are some of the places where smoking is prohibited?

A: Virtually every indoor workplace. The law specifically lists: aquariums, galleries, libraries, museums, bars, bingo halls, convention facilities, elevators, movie theaters, performance spaces, health-care facilities, licensed child-care and adult daycare facilities, polling places, restaurants, retail stores, places of public assembly, schools, malls, and sports arenas, including outdoor complexes.

Also covered are public transportation facilities, including buses and taxicabs, and ticket, boarding and waiting areas of public transit depots as well as lobbies, hallways and other common areas in apartment buildings, condominiums, trailer parks, retirement facilities, nursing homes and other multiple-unit residential facilities with more than four units.

The law also bans smoking in places used by the general public, including professional offices, banks, laundromats, hotels and motels.

Q: Will the creation of a nonsmoking section allow a business to keep its smoking section?

A: No. The entire business need to be nonsmoking.

Q: Can offices keep indoor smoking break rooms?

A: No. Smoking is prohibited in any indoor workplace.

Q: What about outdoor smoking areas?

A: Employers may set up an outdoor smoking area, but it must be physically separated from the enclosed workplace and must be far enough away that smoke cannot migrate into the building.

Q: How far away from the entrance to a building does somebody need to be to smoke?

A: There is no set limit in the law. However, people are prohibited from smoking in an area were smoke can migrate into the building. The Department of Health recommends 50 feet.

Q: Is smoking allowed in hotel rooms?

A: Yes, as long as a hotel manager wants to allow it in designated smoking rooms. At least half of the rooms in a motel or hotel have to be nonsmoking and a hotel can choose to go completely nonsmoking.

Q: Is smoking allowed in assisted-living residences or nursing homes?

A: Yes, in private and semiprivate rooms or designated areas in the facilities.

Q: Aren't most workplaces already smoke free?

A: Most big Rhode Island companies have been smoke free for some time. A 1995 Department of Health survey found that 62 percent of large companies in the state were then smoke free. Another 23 percent had "highly restrictive" smoking policies. But most restaurants and bars allow smoking.

Q: Were there any laws regulating smoking at the workplace before this?

A: Yes. The Rhode Island Workplace Smoking Pollution Control Act of 1986 called for employers to make "reasonable accommodations for the preferences of both nonsmoking and smoking employees, particularly those employees who, as a result of physical condition, are unduly sensitive to tobacco smoke." But the act did not specifically ban smoking.

Q: How did this ban become law?

A: For several years, workplace smoking bans were proposed but failed. Last year, House Majority Leader Gordon D. Fox, D-Providence, made the issue a priority and negotiated a compromise bill with all interested parties. Sen. V. Susan Sosnowski, D-South Kingstown, sponsored a similar bill, and the House and Senate had further negotiations. On June 10, 2004, the House passed the legislation. Thirteen days later the Senate passed the bill, and on June 29 Governor Carcieri signed it into law.

Q: Where was smoking already prohibited prior to this law being passed?

A: Elevators, movie theaters, libraries, art galleries, museums, concert halls, buses, schools, the State House, public hallways in court buildings, hallways of housing complexes for the elderly, supermarkets, medical offices and hospitals. Restaurants that seated 50 or more people were required to have a nonsmoking section.

Q: What were the penalties?

A: Any person caught smoking in a prohibited location could be fined $50 to $500.

Q: Is anyone exempt from the new law?

A: Yes. Establishments with class C and class D liquor licenses can allow smoking 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 Veterans of Foreign Wars post -- are exempt for those 18 months as long as they are nonprofit or charitable corporations with a defined membership and "not ordinarily a place of public accommodation."

Q: How many class C and D locations are there in the state?

A: 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.

Q: Is anyone else exempt?

A: Yes, the state's two gambling parlors -- Newport Grand and Lincoln Park -- are permanently exempt as are cigar or smoking bars.

Q: Why are the two gambling parlors exempted?

A: Legislators looked at data from Delaware that showed gambling facilities there lost significant amounts of money during the first year of that state's smoking ban. Rhode Island gets about 60 percent of all gambling revenue at the two facilities, an estimated $255 million this year. Connecticut's two casinos -- Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun -- are exempt from that state's smoking ban because they are on sovereign tribal land.

Q: What defines a smoking bar?

A: At least half of the business's revenue has to come from tobacco sales. Food or alcohol can be sold but can only be "incidental to the consumption" of tobacco products.

Q: Can people smoke at outdoor sporting events?

A: No. Smoking is prohibited in outdoor stadiums and at Little League games and school athletic events.

Q: How about at the beach or in state parks?

A: Smoking is allowed in these and other outdoor spaces that are not confined, according to the Department of Health.

Q: If a restaurant has outdoor seating, is smoking allowed in that section?

A: Yes. Smoking can occur outside but the smoke must not migrate into the building.

Allowed locations include sidewalk tables, patios and decks, and areas covered by an awning. However, if the section has walls and a ceiling and is deemed an enclosed area, smoking would be prohibited, according to Robert Vanderslice, who is in charge of enforcing the law at the Department of Health.

Q: What are the punishments for breaking this law?

A: The fines are $250 for the first violation, $500 for the second and $1,000 for each subsequent violation. Each day of a violation counts as a separate offense.

Q: Who pays the fine?

A: The business owner.

Q: What about in public places or in situations where there is no clear "employer" such as courthouses or the State House?

A: The law is not clear in these instances about who would pay the fine.

Q: How will the law be enforced?

A: The Department of Health has a tip line for offenses: (401) 222-3293. However, for a formal action to take place, the department needs a written and signed letter of complaint. The department will also do spot inspections as will local fire departments and local substance-abuse task forces.

Q: Who prosecutes these cases?

A: Local town or city solicitors in municipal court. The local municipality would split any penalties with the state. If the local solicitor fails to prosecute, the Department of Health has the ability to bring a civil case to court.

Q: Who gets the fine money?

A: The fines are split between the state and the local municipality.

Q: Where can people get more information about the ban and Health Department regulations?

A: By calling (401) 222-3293 or visiting http://www.health.ri.gov/disease/tobacco/workplacelaw.php

Q: Where can people get information about quitting smoking?

A: By calling 800-Try-to-Stop (401-728-5920 for help in Spanish) or by visiting: http://www.trytostop.org/ or http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/how2quit.htm

By calling those numbers, people can get free counseling, free nicotine patches and nicotine gum.

Q: How many people in Rhode Island smoke?

A: The Department of Health estimates that 22.2 percent of all adults in Rhode Island in 2003 were smokers -- that's about 173,000 adults. In addition about 17 percent of public high school students in Rhode Islanders -- about 8,250 students -- smoked then, down from 35 percent in 1997.

Q: How many cigarettes were sold in the last year in Rhode Island?

A: About 59.5 million packs of cigarettes were sold during the last calender year based on the number of state tax stamps.

Q: What is the official name of the new law?

A: Public Health and Workplace Safety Act.

Q: Why is it called that?

A: The bill was sold as not just a smoking ban, but a way to protect workers from inhaling cigarette smoke. The move gained the health advocates the support of the state's labor unions.

Q: Are business owners required to do anything?

A: Yes, they must "clearly and conspicuously" post signs declaring the space smoke free and providing a phone number for reporting violations.

Q: Where can business owners get these signs?

A: The Department of Health has examples that can be printed out from its Web site: http://www.health.ri.gov/disease/tobacco/workplacelaw.php There is also an order form on that site and a list of community agencies that have signs.

Q: What states currently have similar statewide smoking bans that include restaurants and bars?

A: On March 1, Rhode Island will become the seventh state to have such a ban. Workplace smoking prohibitions are in place in California, Delaware, Maine, New York, Connecticut and Massachusetts.

Q: Do other states have bans?

A: Yes. Florida, Utah, Vermont and Idaho also prohibit smoking in restaurants but not in bars.

Q: Are there other places that have banned smoking?

A: Many local communities across the country have their own smoking bans. Ireland, India, Norway, Scotland and New Zealand all have some type of prohibitions. Most recently Italy and Cuba imposed smoking bans.

Q: Where is the full text of the law available?

A: http://www.rilin.state.ri.us/Statutes/TITLE23/23-20.10/INDEX.HTM

Q: Is the Department of Health spreading the word about this new law?

A: Yes. A statewide print, radio and television advertising campaign started mid-January. It will cost about $250,000.

Q: Have businesses been notified about the changes?

A: Yes. The Health Department sent a letter out to 40,200 businesses in the beginning of January notifying them of the new law. The department has also been attending business roundtables and other gatherings to inform companies of the upcoming changes.

Q: What is secondhand smoke?

A: The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that secondhand smoke is a combination of smoke given off by the burning of tobacco products and the smoke exhaled by smokers. The CDC says that it contains a mixture of more than 4,000 chemicals, more than 50 of which are carcinogens, cancer-causing agents.

Q: What are the effects of secondhand smoke?

A: The CDC says that secondhand smoke is associated with an increased risk for lung cancer and coronary heart disease in nonsmoking adults. Exposure to secondhand smoke is also associated with an increased risk for sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), asthma, bronchitis, and pneumonia in young children.

Q: How many people die each year in Rhode Island because of second-hand smoke?

A: About 200 people.

Q: What is the cost of treating people for illnesses directly related to smoking?

A: Each year, $396 million is spent in Rhode Island to pay for health care that is directly related to tobacco, according to the state Department of Health. This covers everything from doctors visits to medications to chemotherapy.

Q: Where can I find more information about secondhand smoke?

A: http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/factsheets/secondhand-smoke-factsheet.htm

Q: Is secondhand smoke dangerous?

A: In 1993, the federal Environmental Protection Agency classified secondhand smoke as a class A carcinogen, like asbestos and radon. The Health Department says there is no safe level of exposure to secondhand smoke.

Q: How much smoke can someone really inhale from being in a restaurant or bar?

A: The Department of Health says that working an 8-hour shift in a smoky bar is the same as smoking 16 cigarettes.

Digital Extra: Browse even more questions and answers about the new smoking ban and secondhand smoke, and find related Web resources, at:

http://projo.com/extra/2005/smokingban/