For bowling alleys and pool halls, smoking bill is cloudy

VIRGINIA BEACH

Candy Mitchum runs Pinboys at the Beach on Laskin Road. The bowling center offers beer and snack-bar foods like burgers, hot dogs, fries, sandwiches.

"You wouldn't, I think, come in and order dinner," Mitchum says, "unless you were bowling."

But Mitchum learned something interesting while following the news that the General Assembly had passed a bill prohibiting smoking in restaurants: She's not running a bowling center; she's operating a restaurant.

Because of the way Virginia law defines restaurants, Mitchum and a handful of other businesses will find themselves in a legal cinch knot: The law says that if a place serves alcohol, at least 45 percent of its revenue must come from food.

If a place serves food, that makes it a restaurant.

And if it's a restaurant, as of Dec. 1, smoking likely will be prohibited.

Barry Behrman was curious to know what category his 21,000-square-foot Q Master Billiards on Princess Anne Road falls into.

"People come here to play pool," Behrman said. "Yes, they eat. Yes, they drink. But would you classify Q Master's as a restaurant?"

Behrman figured he would fall into the same classification as bowling centers - and he was right. Both are restaurants and must comply with the smoking rules if Gov. Timothy M. Kaine, as expected, signs it into law.

There still are ways to allow smoking after Dec. 1. As Del. Chris Jones, R-Suffolk, said: "We've called it a smoking bill, not a smoking ban."

The bill requires a room that has its own ventilation and is a separate area. The bill even defines that: " 'Structurally separate' means a stud wall covered with drywall or other like barrier..." that runs from floor to ceiling.

No lattice-work between the bar and dining room.

A restaurant won't need to provide a percentage of its tables for nonsmokers, but a patron should be able to walk to the nonsmoking area without passing through the smoking section.

Behrman said he can do that inexpensively at Q Masters, because he has about 20 billiard tables each in three different sections.

"I'm not fighting it," he said. "You have 81 percent nonsmokers, and when it gets to that point, you've got to cater to those people."

Mitchum laughed when asked whether a lot of bowlers smoke.

"Oh, yeah."

And the way she understands the bill, to have a smoking area and comply, she'll need to build a wall down the middle of her facility.

"As far as I know, it's not an illegal substance," she said, "and we have league and nonleague bowlers who like to smoke. We'll have to decide what we'd have to do to accommodate them."

At Harold's Restaurant in Pembroke, owner Harold Owens said making way for nonsmokers probably has helped his business. He took the restaurant smoke-free last February, after noticing he often had open seats in the smoking section and customers waiting for a table in nonsmoking.

"Fifteen, 20 years ago, I would have fought you tooth and nail if I had to go nonsmoking," Owens said. "But the customers come in and say, 'We love the smell of the place now.' "

And for those yearning for the old days, a few places still will allow you to smoke in public. The bill exempts tobacco stores, warehouses and manufacturing plants.

The cafeteria at the Altria Group, parent company of Philip Morris, in Richmond is open to smokers, as are private offices at the company, spokesman David Sylvia said. At the plant that makes Marlboro, Basic, Virginia Slims and Parliament cigarettes, workers can't smoke on the production floor but can in break areas.

And closer to home, tobacco shops can keep their back-room smoking lounges open. Teea Fullen, manager of Emerson's in Virginia Beach, sat the other day smoking an $11 La Gloria Cubana stoagie.

Every day, Fullen said, people stop in, sit in the lounge and smoke. "We'll probably get more now," she said.

Lon Wagner, (757) 222-5119, lon.wagner@pilotonline.com