smoke.html

SMOKE 'EM WHILE YOU GOT 'EM

written by John Harrell photos by Mellissa Hagerstrand

Smoke curls upward toward the yellow-stained ceiling, eventually surrendering to the silent, sucking filters of a Smokeater. The pump and its twin across the room are three years old, installed in less worrisome times, with hopes of providing patrons of San Francisco’s Plough and the Stars Irish Pub a breath of fresher air for years to come. Now, it looks as though the machines will be out of a job.

Come New Year’s Day, smokers must literally keep their butts outside, as bars, taverns and gaming halls across California hang up "no smoking" signs, thus stubbing out one of the few havens left for smokers.

On January 1, drinking establishments throughout the state finally succumb to a 1994 state law banning smoking in enclosed work places. Restaurants, and bars attached to restaurants, are already required to comply, while bars have been exempted through the end of this year. When the exemption expires, California becomes the first state to eliminate smoking in all bars, whether attached to restaurants or not.

"Yeah, I’m angry," owner Sean Heaney says, straining to be heard above the din of fiddles and mandolins, "and I’m a nonsmoker," The traditional Irish band is good and Heaney’s bar is packed with cheerful, foot-stomping revelers -- many contributing to the pumps’ efforts overhead with carefree abandon. Most are unaware of the changes the new year will bring. Heaney’s Irish accent underscores the dark expression framing his face. He is concerned about what the law will mean for his cash register. "It’s just one more thing to have to worry about in owning a small business," he complains. "I don’t know how we can even enforce it. Suppose customers refuse?"

Indeed, how to enforce the ban? is the question formed on the lips of tavern owners citywide. "There’s certain bars around town, where you don’t tell people much of anything," says one financial district barkeep, "let alone put out your cigarette." The law does not require bar owners to evict patrons who refuse to comply with the law, but simply demands they inform them not to smoke. Owners are also required to post no-smoking signs and eliminate ashtrays. If found out of compliance -- or if no reasonable attempt to prevent smoking is made -- barkeeps face fines of up to $500 for each conviction. Patrons who disobey are fined nothing.

But San Francisco Senior Health Inspector Tom Rivard doesn’t see a problem. "The [law’s] guidelines should work effectively in about 99 percent of the cases," he says. The San Francisco Department of Public Health has given the responsibility of coordinating enforcement of the smoking ban to Rivard. "Bar owners can control the activity," he says, "It’s just a question of them wanting to. I guarantee you if customers were to do some other activity in that bar -- like refuse to pay for their drink -- they wouldn’t get another one. Or if they were to start a fight, the owner would call the police, and those people would be asked to leave."

Bar owners like Heaney remain skeptical, while others point to incidents like one last year in Toronto. Smokers helped overturn a similar law through civil disobedience. "I don’t think that will happen in San Francisco," says Rivard. "San Francisco and Toronto are fairly different communities. The momentum is in the direction of not exposing people to cigarette smoke."

If three years ago someone told Raymond Sasso he would one day battle that momentum, as well as government agencies, national health organizations, and the media -- to defend an unpopular cause that suffers disfavor even in the Sunday comics -- he would have laughed. After all, he cuts hair for a living. But waging war is exactly what he’s doing. A modern day David, though some would argue the holiness of the cause. Sasso is president and co-founder of Fight Ordinances & Restriction to Control & Eliminate Smoking, a San Francisco based political action committee advocating smokers’ rights. "I’m a New Yorker," he smiles. "I guess that fighting incentive is in me." Sasso, who looks much younger than his 45 years, easily commits a third of his time to F.O.R.C.E.S., for which he is paid nothing. "In fact I’ve lost money out of lost work by spending time with F.O.R.C.E.S.,S he says, diverting an exhaled drag from his Private Stock cigarette. "I’ve been accused of being a tobacco shill, of getting tobacco money, but it’s simply not true."

Most of Sasso’s time is spent maintaining his organization’s web page -- a meandering collection of articles, news and studies from across the nation, aimed at exposing what he coins the anti-smoker agenda. "I can deal with anti-smoking people," he says. "It’s the anti-smokers I worry about." Sasso explains that anti-smoking simply means one who doesn’t like smoking. "Anti-smokers are against people who smoke," he says. It is this group that seems to be leading the anti-smoking fervor sweeping the nation.

What is driving the tidal wave of negative sentiment? "Money – It’s all about money," says Sasso. "A few of the people who started it probably truly believed in anti-smoking and people’s health, then people started realizing there is money. Take the big tobacco settlement for example," he says. "What do you think the lawyers cut of that is going to be? $30 billion. I think that’s a pretty good incentive." According to Sasso, the swell of anti-smoking zeal does more to green the pockets of lawyers, advertising agencies, and researchers -- through tobacco settlement provisions -- than it does to affect public health. He holds up the October 10 settlement between Florida flight attendants and four major tobacco firms to make his point. That settlement earned lawyers $46 million, allocating $300 million to a research foundation to study effects of secondhand smoke. Flight attendants received nothing from the deal.

"You see right next to us just how well the anti-smoking campaign is working," he nods toward a nearby table where a group of teens makes noisy conversation, cigarettes dangling from their lips and fingers. "$800 million," he shakes his head. "That’s how much tobacco tax has earned for smoking education aimed primarily at kids. That money could feed a lot of people. Something’s not working. Still, they keep pouring hundreds of millions of dollars down the drain." Near the corners of Front and Sacramento streets, Kathleen Harrington tends bar at Harrington’s Bar and Grill, as she’s done since she and her husband took over the family business years ago. Like Heaney, she too is worried. As a spokeswoman for both the Golden Gate Restaurant Association and Northern California Tavern and Restaurant Association, she is more than happy to lobby support from anyone who will listen. "If they want to attack the tobacco industry, raise their taxes, do something to them directly. Don’t punish me for allowing a legal product that’s been used in this establishment since it first opened in 1935." "This law is employee-based," says Harrington. "The point of the law is to protect employees, not the patrons." But, she explains, it is the employee who will bear the brunt of any negative effects caused by the new restrictions. "I think smokers will figure out that they might go to a bar they like and stay part of the evening. But, after it gets old going outside to smoke, they may decide to go home to drink, where they’ll discover it’s way cheaper." Faced with the possibility of lost revenue resulting from the ban, she worries it won’t just be the air purifiers out of a job. "We don’t want to lay off anybody," she says. "No place does. The least healthy employee is one who is unemployed."

University of California at San Francisco Professor Stan Glantz says, "The reason they’re scared is because of tobacco-industry propaganda saying they’ll lose 30 percent of their business." He says, "We’ve studied the effect on restaurants affected by smoking ordinances, and that just hasn’t happened." If Sasso has a nemesis, it comes in the form of this man. Recently appointed to the California Legislature’s special Tobacco Research and Oversight Committee, this UCSF professor of medicine -- probably more than any other tobacco opponent -- bears responsibility for the desmogging of America’s restaurants and bars.

It is his book, "The Tobacco Papers," that, in 1995, gained him national notoriety for exposing the tobacco industry’s coverup of the hazardous effects of nicotine. "Take a look at the city of Berkeley," says Glantz. "They’ve had two years of smoke-free bars. If you talk to them, bar owners will tell you business went down, but Berkeley sales tax data shows sales actually improved." According to Glantz, secondhand smoke kills more people in California than outside air pollutants. "The pollution levels in most bars is high enough to qualify as an air emergency -- which means close down freeways and shut down factories. The vast majority of Californians are nonsmokers," says Glantz. "There may be an initial period of confusion, but there will come a time when people will wonder why it didn’t happen sooner."

And to help them along, the San Francisco Department of Health plans to commit at least 35 health inspectors to enforce the new restrictions citywide. "There will be plenty of enforcement," Rivard says. According to Rivard, misguided establishments are sinking a lot of money into elaborate ventilation and air filtering systems. "It won’t do any good," he says. Because the state never established an acceptable level of secondhand for enclosed work places, no air filter is able to meet an acceptable level. Rivard is optimistic though, and expects there to be only a few problems. "We’ll give it time," he says "I’m sure we’ll give it many months."

Sasso has the cynical look of someone nearing defeat, but is unwilling to concede. "Our civil rights are slowing being eroded," he says. "This is not about health, if it was they would be going after the real polluters. Go stand on top of Twin Peaks and look across at the yellow haze overOakland." Stubbing out his cigarette in an ashtray he says, "Then, try to tell me that’s secondhand smoke."