Montgomery Eateries Dread Smoking Ban

For more than a decade, health activists in Alabama have tried to pass a state law to restrict smoking in public places. Every year, they offer a bill in the state Legislature. Every year it dies.

So it was a pleasant jolt for advocates of smoking restrictions when the City Council here in the state capital abruptly barred indoor smoking last month in most public places, such as restaurants, bowling alleys, pool halls and arcades. The municipal measure, approved on the first night it came up, represents the most stringent rules against smoking in Alabama, which remains the only state without a statewide law to regulate smoking in public places.

“They passed it, 7 to 2 -- I mean, ‘Bam!’ ” said an elated Ben McNeill, the councilman who sponsored the ordinance. “I was a little surprised.”

But since passage on Nov. 19, the Montgomery ordinance has stirred protests from the city’s restaurateurs, who fear they will lose business to local bars, which are exempt from the new rules. Restaurant owners have hurriedly sought to head off the law before it goes into effect on Thursday. A council member who voted in favor has switched sides. Opponents plan to ask the council tonight to delay imposing the ordinance.

“If they leave it like it is, this is probably going to put me out of business,” said Johnny Sullivan, who runs two Montgomery restaurants called Sinclair’s.

Montgomery joins a handful of Southern municipalities that are imposing or weighing smoking bans -- a trend that reflects the evolving tactics of anti-smoking activists and shifting attitudes toward the use of tobacco in a region that grows lots of it. While smoking bans have popped up in a few states and scores of counties and cities -- including Boston and, soon, apparently, New York -- the spurt of proposed ordinances in the South is striking because of the region’s traditional antipathy toward restricting personal behavior.

“We’re resistant to governmental regulation -- governmental interference -- in our lives, even when it’s for our own good,” said William Stewart, an emeritus professor of political science at the University of Alabama and an expert on state politics. “It’s part of our political culture.”

Until recently, the South, whose smoking rates are higher than the national average, was the only region in the country without a single local ban on smoking in privately owned spaces, such as work sites and restaurants.

While most Southern states have enacted limited regulations -- say, to restrict smoking in government buildings or prevent it in day-care centers -- anti-smoking forces generally have met resistance to strict statewide bans. Instead, activists are seeking toeholds in the cities and towns, much as counterparts have done in other sections of the country.

In Mississippi’s Delta region, the town of Metcalfe, population 1,109, made state history in October when it barred smoking in all its businesses, which consist of a few convenience stores and beauty parlors. In Georgia, Loganville would become the first city in the state to require that all public places, except stand-alone bars, be free of smoke. The proposal won preliminary City Council approval and awaits hearings next month. A similar prohibition is being debated in Milledgeville.

Other communities are expressing interest, and backers say their next move may be to try to pass a strict indoor-smoking ban, as California and Delaware have. Some other states, including Maine, Maryland, Oregon, Minnesota and Utah, also restrict smoking to varying degrees, and Florida voters recently approved a ban, with some exceptions.

“It’s kind of caught on,” said Ken Vance, a councilman in Milledgeville who is pushing for the smoking ordinance. Vance said he thought of proposing such a measure a few years back, but he figured it wouldn’t pass. “It didn’t feel right,” he said.

But Vance and other local officials who back smoking restrictions say their constituents now are asking for measures to curb secondhand smoke.

“It’s a health issue,” Vance said. “I’ve done a little bit more homework since three years ago and so have a lot of other people.”

Avoiding Lobbyists

The focus on local laws reflects a growing belief among activists that they face better chances on Main Street, where residents who support smoking bans can appeal directly to municipal lawmakers -- far from the influence of tobacco-industry lobbyists in the corridors of state government.

“We’re having better success getting to city council members and mayors than state lawmakers,” said advocacy director for the American Lung Assn. of Alabama.

In Montgomery, McNeill, the councilman, got together with the American Cancer Society to toughen the city’s 1989 ordinance, which required restaurants and other public places to create separate sections for smokers and nonsmokers. McNeill said the old law was poorly enforced.

The new ordinance bars smoking in all public places, such as restaurants, stores, government offices and hospitals. Smoking is allowed in restaurants after midnight, and in bars anytime. “We’re hoping for a domino effect,” said Brad Owen, the American Cancer Society’s director of government relations in Alabama. “We think if we can just get one, then others will follow.”

Montgomery’s restaurant owners, who said they were not notified that such restrictions were under consideration, now envision the worst as they scramble to undo the new law.

At Country Gal’s, a few miles from downtown past a stretch of weatherworn homes and auto shops, the cigarette smoking is nearly as central to the scene as the plates of crispy fried chicken and baked sweet potato. It’s a clock-puncher’s joint, where customers with name tags sewn on their work shirts pack away heaping lunches before settling back with a cigarette.

Most of the folks who eat here are smokers; there’s almost no one to be found in the separate -- and smaller -- nonsmoking section after 1 p.m. “It’s a lonely place back there,” said owner Carol Brooks, who opened the restaurant eight years ago.

Brooks said it is none of the government’s business whether grown-ups do or don’t smoke in her place. She predicted the ordinance would drive her customers away. Several diners said that was probably true.

“I might have to bring a sandwich and then go to the park and have my cigarette,” said Theresa Walton, a 47-year-old secretary who is not allowed to smoke at the Baptist church where she works. She had just finished a lunch of roast beef and mashed potatoes -- and several Carlton cigarettes, puffed in quick succession -- before heading back to work.

“It’s unfair,” said Richard Wagner, 44, a car mechanic. “They should have left it up to the people to decide instead of the City Council.” The next thing you know, said one waitress, they’ll be coming around to ban frying chicken.

Significant Barriers

Despite the limited gains in the South, health advocates face significant barriers to enacting widespread smoking bans. Two of the biggest tobacco-growing states, North Carolina and Tennessee, prevent municipalities from imposing restrictions that are more stringent than state law, making it impossible for local lawmakers to prohibit smoking outright. A similar rule in South Carolina has kept smoking foes from proposing local bans.

Instead, activists in those states have sought to persuade businesses to go smoke-free on their own.

In Montgomery, some restaurant owners feel they will lose no matter which way the battle turns out. “I’m in a no-win situation,” said owner Gail Royal. If the ban survives, she said, the happy-hour crowd at Down the Street Cafe may abandon its barstools. If it is overturned, nonsmoking customers might be miffed.

“They’ll always remember me for going to bat for the smoker,” said Royal, a nonsmoker. “I’ll be the bad guy. And I’m not bad.”