BY ANDREA HOLECEK, Times of Northwest Indiana
holecek@nwitimes.com
Many local Illinois hospitality and recreational businesses claim they won't be operating on a level playing field if the law requires customers to stomp out cigarettes in public places statewide.
Others are taking the proposed ban in stride.
Just months after local municipalities chose whether to go along with Cook County's smoking ban that took effect March 1, the state is poised to prohibit smoking in all public places including bars, restaurants, bowling alleys and casinos.
The Illinois House passed legislation Tuesday that already had been approved by the Senate. Gov. Rob Blagojevich has supported the plan, and if he signs it as expected, the ban would take effect Jan. 1, 2008.
"We're about a mile from the state line," Tom Vierk, owner of Lynwood Bowl on Glenwood-Lansing Road, said Wednesday. "It's going to hurt us very bad, Bowlers will go to Indiana, If 20 percent of our bowlers smoke, we'll lose that percentage of our customers."
Karsten Roy, one of the owners of Dolton Bowl, has had the opposite experience,
"We're been smoke-free since March 1 and it's not really affected business at all," he said. "Smokers go outside. We didn't know what to expect and so far so good. People are still bowling here and all signed up for next season."
Vierk and other business operators in communities along the state line thought they were safe from a smoking ban after Lynwood, Lansing, Glenwood and several other local municipalities passed ordinances that superseded Cook County's and excluded bars and restaurants from its regulations. Their proximity to Indiana and the competition their businesses face from their Hoosier counterparts, was a major reason the communities approved their own laws.
Terry Jarosky, owner of Glenwood Oaks restaurant, said such a ban only is fair to businesses operating in the middle of the state.
"The problem with the smoking ban in Illinois is for the border restaurants," he said. "People will go to Indiana, It's unfair to businesses like us. Smokers are very demanding. They won't go an hour during dinner without a cigarette."
Yet Jarosky said dividing a restaurant into separate smoking and nonsmoking sections is an operational nightmare.
"It (smoking ban) would make it an easier operation to run, but also take away business," he said. "Smokers are coming here from places where they have smoking bans and Indiana is a big part of our market. If we went nonsmoking and they could smoke in Indiana, they will stay there."
Jarosky predicted his bar business would fall about 20 percent if a ban is enacted.
But Diane Glowacki, one of the owners of Bottoms Up Sports Bar and Grill on Thornton-Lansing Road in incorporated Cook County, said her business has fallen off just slightly since the Cook County ban took effect two months ago.
"Liquor is down a little, but it's brought the restaurant part of business up, so there's been no significant decrease in sales," she said. "Maybe a 2- to 3-percent decrease. We expected a bigger decrease, but it really hasn't hurt us that bad. It's better for employees, and the majority of our customers like it. People are coming in that wouldn't come in before because of the smoke."
Susan Griffin, a bartender at Lansing's Shannon's Landing, is a smoker, but doesn't think a smoking ban would hurt the business.
"If I want to smoke I'll go outside," she said. "So I think people will get used to it. They'll go with the flow. I think Indiana will follow suit. It will come. Eventually all states will go nonsmoking. It'll be healthier for everyone."
Andrew Ariens, spokesman for the Illinois Restaurant Association, said the organization doesn't know what the impact of a ban would be.
"We have to take a wait-and-see approach," he said. "The proximity to the state line has been a concern of ours; hopefully Indiana will go smoke-free. It's not a level playing field for those along the state's borders."
During Indiana's recent legislative session there was an attempt by lawmakers to add a statewide smoking ban to a health care plan funded by a cigarette tax hike. The plan cleared the House with the ban intact, but it was subsequently dropped from the legislation before the session ended April 30.
However, Indiana lawmakers decided to have a legislative study committee explore the issue this summer. The panel, which will include members of the House and Senate, could propose some form of smoking ban for lawmakers to consider when they return to session in January.
Times Statehouse Bureau Chief Pat Guinane contributed to this report.
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