SMOKE IN BARS CLEARS JANUARY 1

Questions Remain On How New Law Will Affect Business

Out with the old hazy cocktail lounge. In with the new smokefree bar.

California's statewide ban on smoking in workplaces, which took effect in
1995, temporarily exempted bars and card rooms.

But on New Year's Day, the exemption ends. Any indoor bars with employees
other than the owner must comply or risk fines.

Some tavern owners are afraid that when the smoke clears, they won't find
many customers left. Others are resigned to the changes or determined to
find creative ways around them.

"I have people calling up hysterical: "What am I going to do?" said Bob
Jacobs, a former bar owner who is now executive director of the Northern
California Tavern and Restaurant Association, which fiercely opposed the
law. "I spent five years in the Army in World War II, and for what? Is this
my freedom?"

"We are going to go with it, and we are going to accept it," said Bob
Buich, coowner of the Tadich Grill in San Francisco's Financial District.
"If the law said you can't wear plaid shirts, we wouldn't wear plaid
shirts. A law is a law."

The dangers of secondhand smoke prompted legislators to make California the
first state in the nation to ban smoking in bars.

Sit in a smoky bar for two hours, and you'll suck up as many carcinogens as
if you had smoked four cigarettes, according to figures from the American
Cancer Society.

Between 4,200 and 7,000 Californians and about 53,000 Americans die
each year from the effects of secondhand smoke, said Amy Weitz, spokeswoman
for the organization's Bay Area chapters.

"Smoke is not just a minor annoyance," Weitz said. "For workers exposed to
it eight hours a day, several days a week, it's a major hazard for them. I
think a lot of people don't realize that."

But Will It Work?

The question now is just how well the law will work. Will it prevent the 18
percent of California adults who smoke from having that Marlboro with their
Manhattan?

Steve Pedersen, 61, of Pinole, says he stops into Tommy's Bar in Pinole "no
more than once or twice a day" and will continue to smoke his Raleigh
filters there "till they throw me out."

For people like Pedersen who have been banished from airplanes,
restaurants and offices being shut out of bars is like losing their last
refuge.

"I think it's a bum rap," he said of the upcoming ban. "Nobody asked me.
Did they ask you?"

Depending on the county, either the health department or the local police
will be responsible for enforcing the ban, said Rick Rice, deputy director
of the state Department of Industrial Relations.

In San Francisco, the Health Department will investigate complaints about
bars that continue to allow smoking, and will look for evidence of smoking
when officials do their regular rounds of health inspections.

Bar owners may be fined $100 for the first offense, $200 for the second and
$500 for subsequent violations within one year. After the third offense,
the Health Department may ask the state Occupational Safety and Health
Administration to investigate, which could result in a fine of up to $7,000.

I'm Not A Cop

But the law isn't exactly clear on how far an owner or bartender must go to
get customers to comply.

Bar owners must take "reasonable steps" to prevent smoking, such as posting
prominent signs and requesting that smokers extinguish their cigarettes.
But they need not physically eject a patron, or ask a person who may become
violent to stop smoking.

Must they stop serving drinks to a customer who insists on lighting up? The
law doesn't specify.

Larry Saros, who has owned the Wishing Well tavern on Irving Street and
17th Avenue for 19 years, says he will continue to serve drinks to smokers.

"I'm not a cop," he said. "I'm going to do what the law requires me to do,
and I'm not going to take this a step further."

Fellow tavern owner Bob Fahey at Fahey's on Taraval Street says he too will
follow the law, but is certain he will lose many of his longtime customers.

"If they're going to step outside (to smoke), they're going to go home," he
said.

But The World Goes On

Across the bay in San Leandro, Larry Murphy is more sanguine.

Murphy put a 4foot by 8foot sign on the front of his bar, the Mustang
Club at Hays and Davis streets, which reads, "New law Jan. 1: No smoking in
bars. But the world goes on. We can all live with it."

"My customers, more and more of them are nonsmokers," he said. "I think
eventually we would have gotten around to it anyway."

Besides, he says, the law will be good for his health and could bring other
benefits, as well.

"I'm going to paint over 30 years of smoke, just really lighten the place
up, and not worry about it getting all dingy and dirty again," he said.

At least two Bay Area bar owners have found what they think are ways around
the ban.

Cameron Palmer of Cameron's Restaurant & Inn in Half Moon Bay bought a 1966
English double decker bus, parked it next to the restaurant and plans to
turn it into a parking lot smoking lounge for the Britishstyle pub.

Bus Your Own Bus

Customers will buy their drinks inside the restaurant and carry them out to
the bus, which has been refurbished inside with tables and facing seats.

Since no employees will enter the bus, there should be no violation of the
law, Palmer figures.

"The slogan is going to be, "Bus your own bus," he said.

In downtown San Mateo, the staff at Barley & Hopps is gearing up for a Jan.
3 opening of its new smoking lounge, a completely separate room equipped
with an intercom system by which patrons will order their drinks.

Waiters will then leave the drinks outside the door of the lounge.

"I think that any place can do this, as long as your employees don't go in
there," said Krista Perris, banquet coordinator at the restaurant.

A Prohibition Party

Workers at Harry Denton's Starlight Room are resigned to having to tell
their welldressed, cigarsmoking customers to put away those panatelas
after Jan. 1.

But first, they plan to celebrate.

"On Tuesday the 30th, we're having a "Prohibition Party," said David
McNees, maitre d' at the nightclub, which is on the 21st floor of the Sir
Francis Drake Hotel on Post Street. "We're inviting everyone to bring all
their cigars and all their cigarettes and smoke the night away," he said.

©1997 San Francisco Examiner