Fear for local businesses spurs Edgar Mitchell’s bylaw battle. Carolyn Shimmin reports.
Edgar Mitchell has only smoked once in his life and didn’t like it. Today, however, he is an implacable foe of Ottawa’s new anti-smoking bylaw.
As the owner of the Duke of Somerset on the corner of Bank and Somerset streets, Mitchell, 54, is outraged by the new regulations which effectively ban smoking in all public places.“The bastards are bringing me down,” he complains bitterly.
Mitchell says 60 to 80 per cent of his clientele are smokers and he has already seen a real drop in numbers since the bylaw came into effect on Aug. 1.
He claims he knows one sports group that has decided to meet in someone’s basement and, as Mitchell puts it, “smoke their faces off,” instead of going to a pub for their weekly meetings.
“The bylaw has made my pub inhospitable to my regulars,” says Mitchell. “People that came here six days a week, or part of large sports groups, no longer come as often. I don’t know what they’re doing now.” Mitchell says one regular customer is worth 10 occasional patrons.
Mitchell says he has already had to cut some of his staff’s hours because there aren’t enough customers. He has also seen confrontations between staff and individuals who refuse to stop smoking, logistical problems with running his outdoor patio, littering, and burns on his carpets. Mitchell also fears that the absence of ashtrays in his pub may pose a fire hazard to the 120-year-old building.
Mitchell says that things are a lot more grim for smaller businesses who pay rent.
“For some, if you don’t pay the rent by the fifteenth of every month, they change the locks,” says Mitchell.
“Once you drop to 20-per-cent profit, the business isn’t viable, and for them there is no option, their dream is gone.”
As a result, Mitchell has become a director of the Pub and Bar Coalition of Ontario (PUBCO), dedicated to fight the anti-smoking bylaw.
“In 30 seconds, we were legislated out of business,” says Mitchell. “It came out of nowhere and landed on us like a ton of bricks.” Mitchell says that bars and clubs have not been adequately informed of their responsibilities.
Since then, Mitchell says he has been working at least two days a week on PUBCO concerns, foregoing any vacation time, working a 50 to 60 hour workweek.
Mitchell isn’t a stranger to community involvement. He has been chairman of the Somerset Village Business Improvement Association for the last 13 years. He is also a member of the Bank Street Business Improvement Association.
“He’s very much a pillar of the community,” says Barry McKay, general manager of PUBCO, who has known Mitchell for 15 years. Each year, Mitchell helps with charity bingos, and street festivals on Somerset Street.
Mitchell grew up in Ottawa, receiving a bachelor degree in English from Carleton University in 1968.Later, he moved to Toronto and studied communications at Ryerson Polytechnic Institute. He then got a masters of communications from Syracuse University in New York.
Mitchell, who reads four newspapers a day, returned to Ottawa and began to run the Duke of Somerset part-time, while writing during his spare time. But managing the pub grew to a full-time job.
Now, Mitchell says, he hardly gets to see his family with all his involvement in PUBCO and the business improvement associations.
Mitchell, a tall, broad-shouldered man with a greying goatee, says that one way for him to release some of his frustrations is playing rugby.
He plays for the Ottawa rugby team known as the Beavers, as well as the over 40s team, the Senators. Mitchell also coaches Lisgar Collegiate’s rugby team and is heavily involved in the rugby groups he plays for.
“I tell all the young guys I coach there, not to smoke because it can affect their respiration,” says Mitchell. He says he never picked up the habit, though he tried it once when he was 14 years old and didn’t really like it. His wife smokes and he tries to teach his 14-year-old not to smoke. He says if there was a program to convince others not to smoke he would be involved. But Mitchell is skeptical about the risks of second-hand smoke.
“They’ve been singled out,” says Mitchell about smokers. “People just don’t want to see others smoking and having fun,” he laughs.
Mitchell’s pub has already been fined for a violation, but he plans to challenge it in court.
“They’ve given people (bylaw officers) huge discretionary power,” says Mitchell. “Most of them are cop wannabees, and they’re creating a holy war.”
Mitchell says that it isn’t fair that bylaw officers get to wear bullet-proof vests and carry walkie-talkies. But Mitchell says his staff also faces confrontation.
“Are they going to provide some of my 100-pound girls (staff) with bullet proof vests?” asks Mitchell.
“He has been very actively involved,” says Jill Scott, president of PUBCO and owner of Chateau Lafayette House in the Byward Market. “I feel that he’s been very much in the forefront.”
“I’ve never done anything like this before,” says Mitchell. “I’m an optimist, I always see the glass as half-full. I’ve always been supporting city hall, I was shocked (at their decision).”
Though Mitchell says some of the PUBCO members are starting to feel burned out, he’s still fighting because of his family business.
“The motto for one of our rugby teams is ‘don’t let the bastards get y’a down,” Mitchell laughs.
“Lately, I’ve been thinking of that quite frequently.”