Northwest Initiative Pushes the Limit of Smoking Ban

Jeremy Peters plans to vote against a state measure Tuesday that would establish the most restrictive smoking ban in the nation. But secretly, he said, he hopes the measure passes.

“If nobody is smoking around me when I go out -- you know, in bars -- maybe I’ll manage to quit,” said Peters, 27, a website designer who was having a cigarette and coffee outside a Starbucks in downtown Seattle on a recent afternoon. “I won’t be able even to sit at this table; it is going to be a lot more uncomfortable to smoke.”

Initiative 901 would ban smoking in bars, restaurants and other indoor public facilities and workplaces throughout the state.

It also prohibits smoking within 25 feet of doors, windows or air vents of public places -- which is 5 feet farther than even California’s restriction.

Businesses would be able to apply for an exemption from the 25-foot rule if they could prove to their local health departments that no smoke would flow back into their establishment.

Still, the 25-foot rule would be the strictest in the nation, said Catherine Henze, a research analyst with the Health Policy Tracking Service, a nonpartisan Falls Church, Va., group. Washington would be the 14th state to enact some type of statewide ban affecting workplaces, restaurants and bars.

Figures released by the Washington State Department of Health indicate that only 19.5% of adults in the state are smokers. Given that statistic, it is not surprising some polls show the initiative passing with as much as 64% of the vote.

Opponents say that the measure goes too far and would take a heavy toll on small businesses, as well as limit the options and rights of smokers.

“We are trying to bring back Prohibition here,” said Dave Wilkinson, an organizer of the No on 901 campaign. “It didn’t work then, and it won’t work now.”

The initiative is being promoted by a coalition of public health groups, including the American Cancer Society and the American Lung Assn., after years of deadlock in the Legislature on the issue, according to Peter McCollum, press director for the Healthy Indoor Air for All Washington campaign.

“Public support has been strong,” McCollum said. “We had 100,000 signatures more than we needed to get on the ballot.”

Initiative opponent Wilkinson acknowledges it is unlikely the measure will be defeated, but says that battling it is important.

“This is going to affect the smaller guys, the little guy whose clientele is made up of smokers,” said Wilkinson, a former smoker who works security at a mini casino.

Anthony Anton, vice president of the Washington Restaurant Assn., also contends that small bar owners and mini casino operators are going to lose business.

“We saw it in Pierce County last year, when their ban was in effect,” Anton said. “People who had easy access to tribal establishments where they were free to smoke drove down the road and spent their money there. It isn’t a level playing field.”

Pierce County, which includes Tacoma, enacted a smoking ban in 2004 at the behest of its health department.

The ban was in effect for only three months when it was ruled invalid by the state Supreme Court in February. The court ruled that the health department lacked the authority to put forth such a policy. The court’s ruling helped fuel the push for Initiative 901.

Although the restaurant association has chosen to remain officially neutral on the issue, Anton said his group had “a lot of concerns” about the measure. Still, he said, some members are thrilled with the initiative.

“Bowling alleys, for instance,” he said. “Some of them have wanted to go nonsmoking, have more appeal to young families, but they have been held back by their regular clients, the bowling leagues.

“Now they can blame the government for the ban and start looking at those new markets.”

Annie Tegen, a senior program manager with the national group Americans for Nonsmokers’ Rights says her organization is very excited that the measure is on the ballot in Washington and that its prospects for passing are so strong.

“We have come such a long way from the days when you could smoke in grocery stores, classrooms and airplanes,” Tegen said. The lobbying group for the rights of nonsmokers, based in Berkeley, has been working with federal and state legislatures on issues related to secondhand smoke since 1976.

“Forty out of 50 states this year considered some type of smoking legislation,” she said. “We have a long way to go, but the social norms are changing.”

Among those welcoming that change is Maggie Lawson, 34, a waitress in Seattle. She was happy to give her opinion on Initiative 901 -- “I am all for it” -- as she waited for a bus recently.

She works in a nonsmoking restaurant but has worked in smoking environments in the past.

“Smoking is terrible for you, but the smoker makes a choice,” she said. “I choose not to smoke, but I never had a choice when I worked in places that allowed smoking.”