Breathing easier, or feeling burned

A statewide smoking ban that took effect one year ago has left some businesses thriving, some charting a new course and some suffering. Before the ban, proponents argued that good health equals good business. They tried to ease business owners’ worries by citing studies showing revenues don’t decrease — and sometimes increase — with the implementation of statewide smoking bans.

For many, that has been the case here.

Put Harmony Bowl in the plus column. Heidi Grettenberger, a manager there, has seen more families come to bowl since the ban, which took effect July 1, 2006.

“It’s been all positive, really, as far as I know,” she said. “We haven’t lost any league bowlers or anything from it.”

The restaurant business has also generally benefited, said Luke Travins, managing partner of Concept Restaurants in Colorado Springs, which operates South-Side Johnny’s, Jose Muldoon’s and others.

“It’s just a cleaner, healthier environment,” he said.

The situation with bars, though, is more muddled.

At Will’s Sports Pub on South Nevada Avenue, “happy hour has pretty much disappeared,” said owner Will Pelz. “Most of those people that came in for Monday through Thursday happy hours were smokers. That’s just the way it was.”

But Pelz, an early vocal opponent of the ban, isn’t complaining. His business is doing well, he said, after the ban forced him to shift to more of a restaurant than a bar.

“We used to be more booze than food, and now we’re more food than booze.”

Oscar’s Tejon Street bar and restaurant remains more bar than restaurant, said owner Phil Duhon. Even so, sales are up 20 percent to 30 percent.

He credits that at least in part to a roughly 900-square-foot outdoor addition where smokers can still puff away. “My outdoors is constantly packed,” he said.

Inside, meanwhile, “it doesn’t smell bad, it’s easier to breathe. I can see some of the benefits. If they reversed the smoking law right now, I would probably still keep the inside nonsmoking because it’s nicer.”

Duhon sees the smallest bars suffering the greatest impact. “The mom and pop bars, I don’t see them making it.”

Dozens of bars statewide have already gone under, according to the Coalition for Equal Rights, which was formed by Colorado bar owners to challenge the ban as unconstitutional. The coalition’s Web site, www.stopthebans.com, lists about 55 businesses it says shut down because of the smoking ban.

However, one shuttered Springs business — Nemeth’s El Tejon Restaurant — appears to be listed three times, albeit with some name variation and misspellings. The site lists El Tejon Restaurant, Neimeths S Tejon and Nemethe’s El Tejohn Bar.

Mike Nemeth, co-owner of the restaurant that closed last fall, said it didn’t close because of the smoking ban.

The ban was a factor, he said, but it was a minor one. “I still would have closed,” he said.

The smoking ban may actually have helped business a bit, he said, though he saw it as another example of government interference.

“It was government intervention in your business more than anything else, taking your choices away from you as a person that owns the business.”

The Coalition for Equal Rights’ Web site also lists the Black Forest Inn as a casualty of the ban. Not so, said owner Dan King.

“We closed in November, but it wasn’t because of the smoking ban,” he said. “I think my business actually increased a little bit. It sure didn’t hurt me.”

Deb Lile, president of the coalition’s board of directors, said the list of smoking ban casualties comes from business owners and any erroneous ones will be removed from the site.

Her business — the Love Shack in Denver — has been devastated by the ban, Lile said.

“We’re a pool hall, and my pool leagues are down 40 percent. And therefore, so is my business.”

Bruce Hicks, owner of Murray Street Darts in Colorado Springs, said his business fell 25 percent after the ban took effect. His solution: Ignore the law.

In February, he helped organize a “civil disobedience” protest, encouraging bars to openly defy the ban and collect $1 donations from smokers to pay fines.

“Approximately that 25 percent is back since we’ve been protesting,” Hicks said. However, he faces a stack of 22 citations for suspected violations of the ban, each carrying a maximum fine of $200. His next court date is in late July, Hicks said.

His tickets account for about a third of the 61 citations issued by the Colorado Springs Police Department for alleged violations of the ban. Enforcement of the ban is primarily complaint-driven, said Lt. Skip Arms, a department spokesman.

“The word around town is there are a lot of bars that are smoking, but they’re kind of sneak-smoking,” Hicks said.

The Adam’s Apple Lounge in Colorado Springs briefly violated the ban as a “protest bar” like Murray Street Darts. “That lasted until they (the city) started threatening our liquor license, and then we were done,” said co-owner Linda Picarillo.

Business at the lounge is down 15 to 20 percent, she said. Customers used to drop in throughout the day, she said. “Now it’s more just a happy hour crowd.”

The Spirit Keeper tavern in Black Forest saw business plummet by nearly 70 percent last fall, said owner Shari Warren. But when the Black Forest Inn closed, it left her with no competition in the area.

Thanks to that, she said, “we’re back up to almost 100 percent where we were before the smoking ban hit.”

As a member of the board of directors of the Coalition for Equal Rights, she’ll continue to fight the ban. A key contention of bar owners was that they were being discriminated against, since casinos aren’t subject to the ban. Gov. Bill Ritter, though, recently signed legislation extending the ban to casinos, beginning Jan. 1.

Warren notes there are still exemptions from the ban, such as for cigar bars. “If it’s bad health, it’s bad health,” she said.

Though she’ll oppose the law, she won’t break it, she said.

“I don’t even smoke in my own business when it’s closed and locked up to the public.”

THE LAW

The Colorado Clean Air Act of 2006 requires indoor areas to be smoke-free, from restaurants and bars to grocery stores and indoor sports arenas. Among the exceptions: residences, unless used for day care or child care; casinos; limousines under private hire; cigar tobacco bars; retail tobacco businesses; the smoking lounge at Denver International Airport; and businesses with three or fewer employers that do not allow access to the public.

State lawmakers this year passed two bills modifying the ban. One rescinded the exemption for casinos. As of Jan. 1, casinos in Colorado will be required to be smokefree. The other measure created an exemption for assisted-living facilities to allow smoking in designated areas that are fully enclosed, ventilated and accessible only to residents and their guests. That change goes into effect Aug. 3.

AIR QUALITY

The year-old smoking ban has been a breath of fresh air, proponents say.

A study by the State Tobacco Education and Prevention Partnership found that air quality in hospitality venues, including bars and restaurants, has improved by nearly 70 percent since the law took effect. In bars and taverns specifically, air quality has improved by nearly 90 percent, changing from an Environmental Protection Agency rating of “unhealthy” to “good.”