By Danielle Armengaud
Despite facing initial losses, restaurants and coffee shops that have become smoke-free say the move has helped gain customers.
Mike Armstrong, manager of Choices on Albert Street, agrees that going smoke-free hurt business when he started it four years ago. But he says it’s proven that if a business can survive the transition, sales will increase. He says studies done in California — which has tough anti-smoking bylaws — show this.
“After losing a group of hard-core smokers, we opened a whole new market. We have our old non-smoking clientele, plus new clientele that comes just because they know it’s non-smoking, and then we have the smokers who just deal with it and smoke outside,” Armstrong says.
The issue of smoking in bars and restaurants will be on the slate for Ottawa’s new city council and different bylaw proposals have been made.
Some want to phase in anti-smoking legislation gradually, while others want it to take effect on World Tobacco Day, May 31, 2001. The possibility of allowing designated smoking rooms is also being considered.
The current Ottawa bylaw states at least 70 per cent of a restaurant or bar has to be designated non-smoking.
The Region of Ottawa-Carleton recently held a ceremony to honour restaurant owners who have made their establishments 100 per cent smoke-free, and its Web site has a list of 304 eating establishments that don’t allow smoking.
The Roses Café on Gladstone Avenue is one such place. The restaurant switched to non-smoking four years ago.
“Initially people did scream about it, and people were upset and left because they couldn’t smoke,” says owner Subodh Mathur. “Now it’s going fantastic, business has gone up.”
In his restaurant’s Byward Market location, however, he still allows smoking. Mathur says banning smokers there would threaten business because competition in the market is higher.
Despite the successes of smoke-free restaurants and coffee shops, many bar owners say a smoking ban will create financial troubles.
“Even if everyone has the same policy, smokers won’t have that extra coffee or beer with their cigarette,” says Jimmy Cory, manager of Wall Street Bar & Grill on Bank Street.
Edgar Mitchell, owner of The Duke Of Somerset Pub on Somerset Street, says despite the region’s claim that only 22 per cent of people in Ottawa-Carleton smoke, 75 per cent of his patrons do.
He says better standards for air cleaners should be enough to satisfy those with health concerns.
Allowing well-ventilated, enclosed smoking rooms may not be a practical solution either, says Gerry LePage, director of the Bank Street Promenade, an organization that strives to improve business on Bank Street.
For many businesses the cost will be too high, or the space is simply not there, he says.
“(The city) will have to be careful when implementing a policy,” he says. “It will be extremely discriminatory if only a small portion of businesses will benefit, while the rest will have to be sold.”