Maryland bars and restaurants might as well not bother opening their doors this weekend. No one's coming out anyway.A statewide smoking ban is taking effect today.
We've all seen how the smoking ban has turned DC into a ghost town on nights and weekends. Young professionals head straight to Metro after work, ride home in listless silence, and sit at home reading the collected works of Henry David Thoreau.
OK, so that's all a big lie. Like every other community in the country, DC's smoking ban has had absolutely no noticeable impact on the city's economy. The same can be said of Maryland's counties that had already banned smoking:
In Howard County - smoke-free for eight months - officials have not received any complaints of lost revenue, said Dr. Peter L. Beilenson, the county's health officer. Since the Howard ban took effect, the county's smoking hot line has received about three dozen calls, but no fines have been issued, Beilenson said.While Gov. Tim Kaine is pushing a Virginia smoking ban hard this year and the Virginia Senate is likely to approve it, the House vote will once again be close. Considering a full 70% of Northern Virginians support a ban, the eleven Northern Virginian delegates who voted against the ban last year are especially in focus. The nine Republicans and two Democrats are:
"The biggest news is that there is no news," Beilenson said. "It came in with a bang and went out with a whimper."
- Dave Albo (R-Springfield)
- Chuck Caputo (D-Chantilly)
- Mark Cole (R-Fredericksburg)
- Jeff Frederick (R-Woodbridge)
- William J. Howell (R-Fredericksburg)
- Tim Hugo (R-Centreville)
- Bob Hull (D-Falls Church)
- Scott Lingamfelter (R-Woodbridge)
- Robert G. Marshall (R-Manassas)
- Joe T. May (R-Leesburg)
- Jackson Miller (R-Manassas)
In the meantime, one clean air activist isn't counting on the General Assembly to do the right thing. He's going to court:
[James] Bogden is the plaintiff in a lawsuit filed against four local restaurants in U.S. District Court in Alexandria. The suit seeks to require the restaurants to become smoke-free, arguing that they must accommodate Bogden's disability, coronary artery disease, and eliminate secondhand smoke so he can eat at them. Each of the restaurants allows smoking in designated areas.While all the legal and legislative shenanigans are sorted out, Arlington residents have a great resource in the Arlington Civic Federation's list of smoke-free bars and restaurants (recently updated).
2 comments:
The UK ban has closed hundreds of pubs already,closures running at 67 per month but many more borded up-it has been an economic nightmare.
Mark, you're right that British pubs are closing, but to say it's due to the smoking ban is a stretch. The Sunday Mirror attributes the troubles to a combination of rising beer prices and higher overhead costs, with the smoking ban warranting only a brief mention.
It won't get any easier for them with the price of hops going through the roof, a complaint I heard just last night from one of the staffers at Shenandoah Brewing in Alexandria.
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