The next time you peer into a mirror, take a closer look. You’ll be staring at the enforcement mechanism for the city’s new anti-smoking ordinance.
When the city of Houston’s smoking ban expands next month to include bars, it largely will be up to bar managers and their customers to enforce the new rules.
The city is not beefing up enforcement tactics — it only has one smoking-enforcement officer, as well as 43 sanitarians who can issue citations — primarily because officials expect the ban to be self-enforcing, said Kathy Barton, spokeswoman for the city’s Department of Health and Human Services.
In other words, the non-smoking public likely will be the ones asking smokers not to light up where it is not allowed.
“That will go a long way to provide enforcement,” Barton said.
I actually think this won’t be a big deal. Just having places post “No Smoking” signs will be enough to deter most folks. When was the last time you saw someone fire up a ciggie in a restaurant here? We have as many smoking enforcement officers as we’ve ever had. Social pressure is a powerful force.
Turns out, this method has worked elsewhere:
The city of El Paso also relies on self-enforcement. It has proved effective since the ban, which applies to all workplaces, including restaurants and bars, went into effect in January 2002, said Sue Beatty, who oversees training for the El Paso City-County Health & Environmental District. The city has no enforcement officers dedicated to smoking, she said.
“Mostly, if someone sees someone smoking in a public place, they can tell management and that’s pretty much the end of it,” Beatty said. When there’s a complaint, either a restaurant inspector or police officer responds to it, she said.
But in New York City, where smoking has been prohibited in bars and restaurants since March 2003, enforcement works differently.
The city employs 12 smoking-enforcement employees and another 55 restaurant inspectors who look for violations during routine inspections, said Sara Markt, a spokeswoman for New York City’s health department.
“One effect of the ban has been that people don’t feel like they have to tolerate smoke in the public environment,” Markt said. “If someone were to violate the rules, I think it is possible that someone would speak up. But we don’t rely on that. … We do the enforcement.”
Well, New York is a whole ‘nother place, though I’d bet self-enforcement would work well enough there as well. Bottom line, I think this is an appropriate way to handle it. I’ll be a little surprised to learn otherwise.
Austin started out fining the bar employees if someone was smoking in the bar, which made no sense, so it was challenged and changed. Ours has been in effect for nearly two years and generally holds up, but there are still bars where people ignore the ban and are generally left alone because none of the other patrons complain to the staff.
It’s still worlds better than it was.
Please tip your bartenders and wait staff heavily. I would suggest at least $2 per drink. Despite the “studies” many of these people are about to experience a huge drop in income.
It’s difficult to enforce the ordinance unless the bartenders or whoever is in charge are ticketed since most people do not care about this issue and will not call the police. In Texas, the health police can not legally fine an individual unless a police officer is present. One of the things that happened in Austin until the law was changed was that a bar would send an employee to a competing bar to smoke so that the bar’s competitor would be ticketed. It was used as a way to hurt the competition. So bar owner’s, watch for that. I’ve also seen some patrons who were denied drinks by the bartender because of overdrinking call 911 for some payback against the bar. Depending on the layout of the bar, it’s possible for a patron to be smoking without the bartender knowing, and so the bartender getting a fine. That problem was at the heart of the Austin lawsuit, which is still ongoing.
I urge you to visit the little mom and pop bars and neighborhood bars, and spend some money. Don’t just patronize the chain bars and the popular music bars. The little bars do not have the deep pockets to weather the storm that is about to hit. They can not raise drink prices as easily as the better financed bars can.
I would like to add please do not wear perfume or cologne in the bars. Many people have a chemical sensitivity. And musicians, turn down the volume. Loud music damages the hearing of the employees and patrons.
Great suggestions spyglass.
Here’s to hoping the suburbs start adopting smoking bans.