By Roger McKinney
rmckinney@joplinglobe.com
Members of the Smoke-Free Joplin Coalition will travel by limo to four local bars tonight to use St. Patrick’s Day to highlight the group’s campaign to make all local bars and restaurants tobacco-free.
The pub crawl will start at 7:30 p.m. at Gusano’s Chicago-Style Pizzeria, then travel to Sportsman’s Park, Blackthorn Pizza and Pub, and Crabby’s Seafood Bar and Grill.
Coalition
The group is connected with Missouri Southern State University. Krista Stark, with the Smoke-Free Joplin Coalition, said the event is designed to raise awareness about nonsmokers’ desire for smoke-free environments, and to endorse the health and economic benefits of establishments becoming smoke-free.
Willie Edwards, professor of teacher education at MSSU, is co-chairman of Smoke-Free Joplin.
“We’re not opposed to business,” Edwards said. He said a much larger percentage of potential customers of bars and restaurants are nonsmokers than are smokers.
He said businesses, workers and customers benefit when businesses ban smoking.
“In every state where they pass smoking bans, the businesses have not suffered,” Edwards said.
But there are published statistics to the contrary.
A March 2008 report by the Center for Regional Economics, part of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, concluded that a January 2007 smoking ban in Columbia, Mo., had no effect on restaurants. But it also concluded that bars and restaurants with bars had losses ranging from 6.5 to 11 percent attributed to the smoking ban.
“Measuring the economic effects of smoking bans can sometimes be difficult,” the report’s conclusion reads. “For the case of Columbia, Mo., this analysis of data on sales tax revenues indicates that losses are of a magnitude that is clearly identifiable and statistically significant.”
Reaction mixed
Jason Hurd, general manager at Crabby’s Seafood Bar and Grill, said the business had been offering a smoke-free lunch, and it went smoke-free for lunch and dinner beginning last week. Hurd said the smoking section has been eliminated altogether.
Hurd said about half the restaurant was used as the smoking section, and those seats often were empty.
“We were essentially not using half our restaurant,” he said.
Hurd said he has heard a few complaints from regular customers who are smokers.
“Smokers don’t like it,” he said. “We’re not really getting too much feedback from it. It’s kind of a mixed bag.”
At Sportsman’s Park, there is a no-smoking room for customers. Brooke Schuster, who is one of the managers and a nonsmoker, said she would prefer a smoking ban.
“I really don’t like smelling like smoke,” Schuster said. “It would be nice.”
She said banning smoking at the business would be a top-management decision.
Statewide
Kansas Gov. Mark Parkinson on Friday signed into law a bill that prohibits smoking in all bars, restaurants and workplaces, except state-owned casinos. It takes effect July 1.
In Baxter Springs, Kan., Mayor Huey York, a smoker, has asked City Attorney Robert Myers to research whether the city could exempt itself from the state law by charter ordinance.
“It’s out and out discrimination,” York said at the March 9 City Council meeting.
A statewide smoking ban in businesses also is being considered in the Missouri General Assembly. A hearing on the bill was conducted Feb. 22 by the Senate Judiciary and Civil and Criminal Jurisprudence Committee.
Hurd, at Crabby’s, said he prefers that businesses be allowed to make the decision voluntarily.
“I don’t like it mandated,” he said. “I feel like it should be left up to the individual businesses.”
Gusano’s Chicago-Style Pizzeria also is smoke-free. Blackthorn Pizza and Pub offers a no-smoking room.
Message
Members of the Smoke-Free Joplin Coalition during their St. Patrick’s Day Pub Crawl will be wearing green shirts with the message “Smoke-free bars, think about it!”
