Kathy Hulen serves lunch to Kristine Cavaletto (far left) and Ron Holliday Wednesday at the Riley House Restaurant. The couple sits in what used to be the smoking section of the restaurant.
Kathy Hulen serves lunch to Kristine Cavaletto (far left) and Ron Holliday Wednesday at the Riley House Restaurant. The couple sits in what used to be the smoking section of the restaurant.
Traci Moyer, Daily Reporter staff writer

Carmen Privett, thinks the new city ban on smoking is a wonderful thing.

“I think it’s great,” she said.

Privett works at Riley House Restaurant, 1020 W. Main, and said there have been some upset customers who used to smoke in smoking section, but she enjoys working in a smoke-free environment. She said some customers have threatened not to do business at the restaurant.

“It’s not like we did it,” she said of the ban on smoking. “When they get hungry, they’ll come back.”

Some of the customers sitting in the former smoking area of the restaurant were happy with the smoking ban.

“It’s a great idea,” Larry Booher said. “There are health reasons why they shouldn’t smoke in public. I don’t agree with secondhand smoke.”

If people can’t wait 30 minutes to smoke a cigarette they have a problem, Ron Holliday said.

“We choose to be the idiots here, you don’t want to take anyone with you,” he said. “You can control the need to smoke – that’s the way I look at it.”

His breakfast companion, Kristine Cavaletto said she was uncomfortable eating in the smoking sections of restaurants when children were present.

“There are a lot of younger moms that bring their children in here when people smoke. That is what bothers me,” Cavaletto said.

Mayor Rodney Fleming said his office received no written complaints on the first day the ordinance went into effect. Complaints should be directed to the mayor’s office. If a violation is discovered, the business will receive a warning letter, but a second violation will result in $100 fine. If business owners tell a customer or employee not to smoke on the premises, the responsibility for the violation shifts to the offender instead of the business owner.

Ann Tomey, who runs Annie’s Restaurant, 20 W. South St., asked a customer this morning to extinguish his cigarette or smoke it outside.

“(The council) told us it wouldn’t affect us,” Tomey said of the smoking ban on her restaurant where most of the customers smoke. “We were down $50 yesterday.”

Because smoking is allowed at bars, where the majority of revenue is generated by alcohol sales, Sylvia Settles said the city is being ridiculous.

“This is supposed to be for health reasons,” she said. “What? Let’s really put the hurt on them and let them smoke and drink? That doesn’t make any sense to me.”

Smoking or not, Jon Headlee will continue to eat at Annie’s.

“They have my biscuits and gravy here so I have to keep coming back,” he said.

Tomey was raised to believe no one was better than her and she is no better than anyone else, the exact opposite of what the city is conveying, she said. She hopes the council will consider an alternative smoking ordinance presented by the Business Coalition for Citizens’ Rights.

“It’s getting to be a society where one group can control everything,” she said.
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