Twisted logic on smoking ban

Worried about the effect on small restaurants who can scarcely afford to lose business, the Norfolk City Council decided last week to rescind a smoking ban it approved in October.

Instead, the council members are considering a measure that would essentially sell smoking licenses to restaurants at $1,000 a pop.

"Half a loaf is better than nothing," said Councilman Don Williams, who came up with the idea.

It goes without saying that at $1,000, this may be the most expensive half loaf in history; it also goes without saying that charging restaurants to allow smoking may not help their bottom line.

So what's working here?

The impetus behind the strange gyrations in council chambers seems to be - mostly - a kind of fear that banning smoking in city restaurants would hurt business, would drive diners to other cities.

A few restaurant owners have fanned those worries, and more than a few members of City Council have been convinced. Here's the problem: There is no credible evidence that banning smoking hurts restaurants.

There is, in fact, study after study to show that restaurant business improves, or at least doesn't get worse, after a smoking ban, including in communities surrounded by places that permit smoking. Perhaps that's because the 80 percent of the nation that doesn't smoke is now free to have a drink or a meal without worrying about their health, or that their clothes will stink.

For a restaurant's workers, of course, the worries about smoking have always been more than cosmetic, academic, or financial.

"While the number of deaths caused by chronic exposure to secondhand smoke is substantially less than the number caused by active smoking, the public health concern is elevated because secondhand-smoke deaths are occurring among individuals who have decided not to smoke, and thus their increased risk for disease and death is involuntary," said a study published by the Society of Actuaries.

How many people die from second-hand smoke? The actuaries, in 2005, estimated the number at 50,000 a year, undoubtedly many of them workers in restaurants where second-hand smoke is especially heavy, and from which there is little opportunity for escape or respite during an eight-hour shift.

A $1,000 license to smoke will, in effect, ban cigarettes from restaurants that can't afford to pay the bill. For their workers, that's undoubtedly a healthy thing.

But it's awfully hard to argue, from City Hall, that workers in richer restaurants don't deserve the same protection. Or, if you're arguing from behind the bar, that $1,000 is enough to buy permission to allow customers to sicken your employees.