FAYETTEVILLE — Taking cigarettes out of bars and restaurants could slightly increase business activity, a study at the University of Arkansas shows.
“When you look at SEC (Southeastern Eastern Conference) schools and the towns that surround them ... when you enact a smoke-free policy, it had a small increase — not a large impact — but a small increase on their sales,” said Kathy Deck, director of the Center for Business and Economic Research, at the Sam M. Walton College of Business at the University of Arkansas.
The study examined the food and beverage sales tax figures for three years before and three years after those cities enacted a smoking ban. The Northwest Arkansas Tobacco Free Coalition commissioned the study, and wants to move forward with strengthening Fayetteville’s smoking ban to include bars. It’s not clear when any proposed ordinance might appear before the City Council.
“The most efficient way of actually making an impact on the tobacco burden is by reducing workplace tobacco use,” said Cambre Horne-Brooks, director of development at Community Clinic in Springdale, the umbrella organization for the NWA Tobacco Free Coalition. Entertainment venues are workplaces too, she says, noting working an eight-hour shift in a smoking bar is equivalent to smoking nearly a pack of cigarettes, according to research by the NWA Smoke-free Coalition.
Fayetteville passed a nonsmoking ordinance in 2003 that effectively removed smoking from indoor public places such as offices, shops and restaurants. The law does not pertain to bars. The ordinance was to take effect on Feb. 1, 2004. In March of that year, a public referendum was held, upholding the ordinance.
The Arkansas Legislature in 2006 passed the Arkansas Clean Indoor Air Act, which was essentially a statewide version of the Fayetteville ordinance.
With Fayetteville’s six college-town peer cities enacting comprehensive no-smoking laws, the future seems clear, say officials in the so-called hospitality industry.
“At the end of the day, once people get used to it, it’s like anything else, they won’t even think about it,” said Montine McNulty, director of the Arkansas Hospitality Association in Little Rock. “And our society is getting used to where even if you do smoke, you go outside.”
She added the Arkansas Hospitality Association has not taken a position on the proposal, but cautioned these ordinances can negatively affect some businesses.
“It could be very harmful to them from a business perspective,” McNulty said.
Some bar operators in Fayetteville say if bar-staff are opposed to cigarette smoke, they should find another establishment to work for.
“You shouldn’t work in a bar,” said Leslie Sabarese Roberts, 33, a bartender at 21st Amendment on Dickson Street. “Or go work for a restaurant that doesn’t have smokers.”
About 75 percent of the customers at 21st Amendment are smokers, she added.
Up the street at Mickey Finn’s Irish Pub, bartender Buck Ahrens said without a patio or outdoor space, his bar could be hard hit, where almost 100 percent of the customers smoke.
“Personally, I don’t like working in a smoking environment, but I think it would hurt business,” said Ahrens, 34, of the effects a smoking ban could have on Mickey Finn’s popularity.
The NWA Tobacco Free Coalition also commissioned a survey of Fayetteville voters to learn what residents think of the smoking ban in restaurants and a possible across-the-board smoking ban. The telephone survey polled 729 voters. The survey’s margin of error was 3.7 percent.
“When asked if they would support or oppose an ordinance that prohibited all smoking in bars and nightclubs in Fayetteville so that patrons and employees would not be exposed to secondhand smoke, 66 percent said they would support such an ordinance,” the survey concluded. They survey was conducted by American Arts and Research.
---
AT A GLANCE
Fayetteville Peer Cities
South Eastern Conference Cities That Ban Smoking In Bars
• Auburn, Ala. — Auburn University
• Athens, Ga. — University of Georgia
• Oxford, Miss. — University of Mississippi
• Starkville, Miss. — Mississippi State University
• Columbia, S.C. — University of South Carolina
Source: Staff Report