Coalition targets restaurants in 'tobacco free living' offensive

For some people, a meal without a cigarette is like prom without a date. But those folks might have to leave their smokes in the car at Price County restaurants if the Tobacco-Free Coalition gets its way. "Second-hand smoke is dangerous," coalition volunteer Andrea Jean said, and the coalition's goal is to eliminate it from at least one Price County municipality by the end of 2006. The coalition is staging a bottom-up attack, with a community information and organizing campaign they hope will lead to legislative action. Their activities are funded by state and federal tobacco settlement money funneled through the Price County Health Department. Coalition Director Chris Simon said the group has not decided which municipality to focus on. She said that will depend on later determinations about where an anti-smoking measure is most likely to pass. Coalition volunteers said they are fighting for non-smokers' health. They said second-hand smoke poses public health risks and that some people - asthmatics and the elderly in particular - have severely limited options because their conditions do not allow them to go where smoking is allowed. A local student corroborated those claims. Second-hand smoke "creates a point where I can't breath very well," Park Falls High School senior Jacob Prescott said. "I had to cut back on snowmobile trips because everywhere we went has smoking." Prescott said smoke triggers uncontrollable coughing and flow of mucus, and renders his asthma medications ineffective. And he said snowmobile trips aren't the only things he has had to scale back in his life. "I like to think that people should be able to do what they want with their bodies," he said, "but (a smoking ban) would make my life a whole lot easier." The coalition expects an uphill battle. Volunteers said local culture is generally permissive of smoking, in part because of an aging population that grew up with tobacco. "There's a lot of pressure against this," Simon said. But a "truth campaign" will soften resistance to change, volunteers said. The coalition has not proposed parameters for a possible ordinance, such as whether there should be exemptions for bar-restaurants or bar-restaurants that sell more than a certain amount of alcohol - as has been done in some other jurisdictions. Simon seems to favor a total ban. "To me, if you're going to go smoke-free, go smoke-free," she said. But she said there are camps in the anti-smoking movement who would prefer proposals for piecemeal change - if it becomes clear that strategy would be more likely to succeed. Those winds of change aren't blowing in other corners. On a recent Thursday afternoon at Meister's Bar and Grill in Phillips, a haze gathered around the TV and overhead lamps. Customers burned Marlboros and Virginia Slims over cold beers and pub grub as they watched the day's events unfold on CNN. They said a smoking ban would present them with a clear choice. "I don't go to places you can't smoke," Mary Jo Vollendorf said. "You can't in Eau Claire. When we go there, we go out in Chippewa Falls." Vollendorf lives in Hawkins, and she said if Phillips approves a smoking ban she will drive the other way for a bite to eat. "I'll be darned if I'm going to pay ... and not be able to enjoy myself," she said. Meister's bartender Patti Stanke estimated 65 to 75 percent of her customers smoke. She said if a smoking ban were enacted, many of them would "probably just stay home." Simon said those fears are exaggerated. She said when smoking bans go into effect, smokers grumble and stay home for a while, but soon "trickle back." But some smokers are protective of what they say is their right to enjoy a cigarette in public places. "I don't smoke around people who don't want it," Meister's patron Rose Nadr said. "But when I'm out, I want to smoke. ... That's my privilege." Some restaurant owners, meanwhile, would welcome the change. "I'd be all for it," Bonnie's Diner owner Shelley Moon said. "There have been a lot of people asking for (a smoke-free environment)." She said a ban might even improve business by bringing out families and others who might currently be avoiding restaurants that permit smoking. And as for customers who want to light up? "There wouldn't be anywhere else to go," she said. "People are still going to go out to eat."

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