Smoking ban debate: Iowa bar owners get ready for a fight
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By Kurt Allemeier | Monday, March 10, 2008 |
The sign at Frick’s, a west Davenport tavern, started as a hand-drawn joke by owner Dee Moorman.
A beer distributor made the “smokers welcome here” sign for her to make it look more official.
She said patrons who sit along the length of her bar have plenty of opinions. These days those opinions are all one-sided — and likely to spark profanity — when the topic is the proposed statewide smoking ban being considered by the Iowa Legislature.
“It is a discussion here every day,” she said. “This bar has made it through Prohibition — and now this.
“I own this. It is like my house — and I can’t smoke in it?”
Illinois’ smoking ban has boosted business at the Paddlewheel Sports Bar and Grill on State Street near the Interstate 74 bridge in Bettendorf. Manager Lee Buckley said 85 percent of the bar’s customers smoke.
He said the ban before legislators in Des Moines is a topic of conversation at his bar, too.
“I’m not in favor of going outside in the middle of winter for a cigarette,” Buckley said. “Everybody that comes in here talks about it. It isn’t one person. It is everybody.”
Bar owners are rallying to fight the ban. It passed the Iowa Senate and faces a vote soon in the House. Bar owners are headed to Des Moines today to lobby legislators. The ban also is opposed by casino operators and veterans’ groups.
“This is something we’re fighting for because this is our livelihood,” Brian Froelich, owner of Fro’s Pub and Grub in Wilton. “You contact bars around the state, and you are going to hear the same thing.”
Joe Sturgis, owner of Davenport’s Rusty Nail, was in Des Moines last week talking to lawmakers. He is going to be there this week, too.
“I never would’ve even got into politics,” Sturgis said, “but when they infringe on your rights, like with the touch-play machines and the smoking ban, it is ridiculous.”
Drinkers at Frick’s say the proposed ban attacks their beer-and-a-cigarette way of life and is the action of a tyrannical government. Robert J. Waddington sits at the bar with a drink in front of him and a cigarette in his hand. He said he’s been smoking since he was 7 years old.
“Is this a free country?” he asked. “Why can they tell me what I can and can’t do?
“I’m 82, and I’m not going to quit. If you start telling people what they can’t do, that is communism.”
Jamie Dahlin of East Moline hasn’t stepped foot in an Illinois bar since that state’s smoking ban went into effect.
“If smoking is that bad, they should make it illegal,” she said. “If it is killing all of us, make it illegal. Alcohol is killing us; make it illegal, too.”
Froelich and Moorman argue that employees who face second-hand smoke know the environment they face when they apply for a job at a bar. They also worry about their businesses. Froelich said he heard from customers, and the news isn’t good.
“I’ve had good loyal customers say to me that if they pass this ban, I’m going to stop at the convenience store and pick up what I need and go home and relax,” he said.
Damen Johnson owns Overtime in Bettendorf, a nonsmoking sports bar that he has owned for three and a half years. A smoking ban would be bad for his business.
“People come in because we aren’t smoking,” he said. “If they pass a smoking ban, it takes away our niche.
“A lot of our clients are smokers, but they like leaving here and not reeking of smoke.”
A smoke-free radius around bar entrances that is required in the legislation also would affect Johnson’s bar. As it is now, smokers can pop out the door and smoke, but if smokers have to be a certain distance from the entrance, Johnson said, “I have to change my layout.”
Johnson isn’t optimistic the ban will pass.
“I don’t think it is going to push through because of the casinos,” he said.
WHAT’S NEXT?
Passed by the Iowa House and Senate but with different exemptions, the smoking ban legislation heads back to the House for debate and possible revision.
Kurt Allemeier can be contacted at (563) 383-2360 or kallemeier@qctimes.com. Comment on this story at qctimes.com.
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