Collegiate Times

Just a few miles off Interstate 95 in Richmond, littered with JR Tobacco billboards, the newly elected State Legislature passed a statewide ban on smoking in restaurants. By Dec. 1, 2009, smoking sections will be limited to independently ventilated rooms, outdoor areas and private membership clubs.

Local Blacksburg spots have already designed their buildings to guarantee a smoke-free environment.

Hokie House, a popular venue serving Virginia Tech students, made the decision a little over a year ago to turn the entire lower half of its establishment into a non-smoking section. Lunchtime business has picked up since the policy change, manager Brian Palmer said. However, it also acknowledged that a strong majority of Hokie House's patrons gravitate toward the upstairs floor, where smoking is allowed.

"We've had a year and a half of no smoking downstairs; there's no difference in our clientele, but lunch hour picked up a bit," said Palmer. "We still have about a 60 to 40 ratio of people upstairs to downstairs."

Palmer added that Hokie House's dining areas are already separately ventilated.

Bogen's Steakhouse and Bar on North Main also implemented a smoking policy prior to the new bill. Dave Edmonds, the manager of Bogen's, said he believes the restaurant's policy has positively affected business and supports the new legislation.

"People who don't want to be around smoke shouldn't have to be," Edmonds said. "If people go into a bar, they have to expect smoke," he said, noting that most of the restaurant's smoking patrons are students and young adults.

Edmonds estimated that Bogen's ratio of smoking patrons to non-smoking is also about 60:40. Operating in a renovated house, the dining area and the bar are divided by the host desk. Edmonds said the separately ventilated rooms are the only way to guarantee customers a smoke-free environment.

"You have restaurants like Applebee's that have one dining room; I don't see how you could have a smoking section in the same room as a non-smoking section," Edmonds said.

Champs Sports Bar, a chain restaurant in Blacksburg, has a similar design to Hokie House; however, it currently allows smoking on both floors. Manager Samantha McDonald said she had not decided what action the bar will take before the Dec. 1 deadline.

"We haven't discussed it yet," McDonald said. McDonald did not share Edmonds' optimism about the non-smoking policy. However, she did not expect the ban to have much of an effect on Champs' business.

A local restaurant that may be especially compromised by the bill is She-Sha Hookah Lounge. While the owner of She-Sha was not willing to comment on the bill, Associated Press Reporter Matthew Barakat wrote that at a similar establishment in Falls Church, sales to smoking customers accounted for 80 percent of the restaurant's revenue. There is hope for the Draper Road establishment and its sister restaurants. Barakat reports that the Long Beach California City Council, which was among the first to outlaw smoking in public eateries, recently voted to allow hookah bars to operate outside the ban.

In a Gallop poll, most smokers said they supported the restaurant ban. The Washington Times reported that Gov. Tim Kaine signed the bill saying that it was not in the exact form he wanted, but it was a good bill.  The Times also reported that Speaker of the House William Howell, a Republican from the Stafford district, said that the ban represented a compromise between the two sides, which had been divided along party and geographic lines for years prior.

With the bill's signing, Virginia became the 24th state to ban smoking in restaurants and the first Southern state to do so. The bill had been rejected by lawmakers in the Commonwealth for several years prior to its passage earlier this month.