By Julie Grenier
Some Centretown businesses say they’re concerned the latest recommendations to amend the city’s smoking bylaws are going to force patrons elsewhere.
Richard Teahen, owner of The Cue’N Cushion on Bank Street, is opposed to the City of Ottawa’s latest recommendations on amending smoking bylaws.
It is suggested that smoking be prohibited in restaurants, billiard halls, bingo parlours and bowling centres by Jan. 1, 2002, except in fully enclosed, separately ventilated rooms.
Teahen said patrons have a right to light up anywhere they want in his billiard hall.
“[Non-smokers] choose to either come in or not . . . it’s not a requirement to play billiards in this city,” he said.
If approved, Teahen, along with other businesspeople in Ottawa, would have to build a designated smoking room if he wants to continue to allow patrons to smoke on his premises.
The recommendations suggest the smoking room be no larger than a third of the “usable floor space.”
Teahen said this is also a problem because 95 per cent of his patrons smoke.
He is worried that his patrons will go to another city, like Vanier, where there are no restrictions on smoking.
This concern is shared by Richard Stevenson, owner of Kent Bowling Lanes on Catherine Street.
“It has to be done across the whole region, otherwise I’m going to lose customers,” Stevenson said.
Under the Ontario Tobacco Control Act, each municipality has the power to make its own smoking bylaws.
The only way the whole region could share the same smoking regulations is if each municipality enacted the same bylaws or if they agreed to pass over authority to regional government.
Last year, Nepean and Kanata approved identical smoking recommendations that will come into effect May 31, 2001.
Martha Boyle, a city licencing official, points out that if Ottawa approves those same smoking recommendations, a vast majority of businesses in the region will share the same regulations.
But even that wouldn’t solve everyone’s problems. Tony Disipio, owner of the Prescott La Scala Dining Lounge on Preston Street, said he is concerned with how he would build the smoking rooms.
“When they designed this restaurant in the ’50s or ’60s, they didn’t have [separate smoking rooms] in mind,” Disipio said.
The Prescott is divided into a dining room, a betting lounge and a bar. Disipio said dividing it further would “not be very logical or practical.”
What’s more, Disipio said he has already spent $20,000 on eight machines that purify the air in his restaurant and said he is worried that it may become a lost investment.
Under the recommendations, businesses may substitute such machines for designated smoking rooms when and if the federal government approves such systems.
Boyle said the City of Ottawa has been in consultation with some Centretown businesses, such as the Royal Oak.
Ottawa bars will be given an extra three years to enforce the same regulations as restaurants, billiard halls, bingo parlours and bowling centres.
By Jan. 1, 2002, smoking would be prohibited in bars before 8 p.m. except in designated smoking rooms and by Jan. 1, 2005, smoking would be prohibited at all times except in the designated smoking rooms.