A statewide ban on smoking in restaurants will go into effect today.
The ban, signed into law by Gov. Tim Kaine in February, includes “any place or operation that prepares or stores food for distribution to persons.”
Restaurants may still allow smoking, but only in walled-off areas that have separate ventilation so that air from the section does not circulate to non-smoking areas.
However, the smoking ban does not apply to private clubs. Examples of private clubs include those run by organizations such as Veterans of Foreign Wars.
As a part of the ban, officials from the Virginia Department of Health will place no-smoking signs throughout restaurants and remove ashtrays from smoking-prohibited areas of restaurants. Compliance to the ban will be assessed during regularly scheduled health inspections.
Gary Hagy, director of the VDOH division of Food and Environmental Services, said that the department would work to educate restaurant owners of the law before referring them to local law enforcement.
Hagy added that most restaurants he had spoken with expressed excitement about the smoking ban.
“We think most of the restaurants are going to comply and be courteous to their patrons,” Hagy said.
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Here's to McDonnell reversing this nany state BS.
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I am thrilled about this new smoking ban in restaurants. I had dinner last night at Texas Roadhouse and to get to our non-smoking table, we had to walk past the bar and smoking section and it smelled terrible. Even just walking past it made my clothes smell of smoke for the rest of the evening.
If you want to smoke, smell terrible and slowly kill yourself, that's your business. But don't take the rest of us with you.
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Secondhand smoke is a red herring. http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/326/7398/1057
Also, you don't *need* to go to Texas Roadhouse. If you were that concerned about your health, or truly believed that secondhand smoke is that much of a killer, wouldn't you avoid it altogether, rather than putting up with it? Seriously, in this age of internet networking, why does everyone sit back and whine until the government puts a ban in place? Why not pool the powers of consumers to boycott restaurants that allow smoking?
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"Hagy added that most restaurants he had spoken with expressed excitement about the smoking ban."
Yeahhhh rightttt. I am a 22 year old who goes downtown 1-2 times a week and yes I do smoke in the bars. Bars are NOT going to be happy. You think they want people leaving their bar/restaurant to go outside and smoke rather than smoke while having a drink in hand? Businesses in Blacksburg are going to LOSE money on this any way you look at it. I would not be surprised to see every bar in Blacksburg have a smoking area just so they do not lose money. In addition, if every bar in Blacksburg sent everyone outside to smoke, main street is going to be full of drunk smokers on any given weekend night. Can you imagine everyone who smokes at Sharkey's being forced to go outside. You would have 20-25 people from that bar alone.
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Maybe we think about the employees for a minute, too, instead of being selfish in saying we don't "need" to go to texas roadhouse. Maybe that waiter that works 2-3 jobs does "need" to work there...does that mean he should have to inhale smoke for multiple hours for people that don't "need" to be there? Smoking is far more unnecessary than going to a restaurant. The good money is on the chance that for every smoker who leaves a place to smoke will be replaced by a patron who starts going to bars/restaurants because there is no smoking.
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I hate to say it but most people who go to bars DO smoke. If you take out every smoker at a bar, there will not be an equal number on non smokers taking their place just because there is now no smoking.
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Most people at bars in Blacksburg do not smoke, don't be ignorant. It just seems like everyone smokes, because at the end of the night, everyone smells like smoke because of the few who do.
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Agree with really.
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Do you really think any of this is actually about air quality for 'employee health'? If the government actually cared about that, why start with restaurants and second hand smoke? Why don't they do anything about underground coal mines, paper mills, textile mills, chemical processing plants, etc.? The air quality in these work places is orders of magnitude worse than second hand smoke at restaurants.
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They DO have laws for air quality in coal mines (IDK about the others). They are actually very strictly regulated by MSHA.
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Makes a lot of sense John F. Tell you what, I will start a movement to get coal moved above ground and for chemicals to be removed from chemical processing plants. Don't be completely stupid. At least fake it.
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Adam, are you suggesting that secondhand smoke inhalation is a health hazard? If so, you obviously didn't read my link. It is merely an inconvenience of the job. Nothing more, nothing less.
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That study is a little weird and I don't whole heartedly agree that it is a definitive result. I don't think SHS is as horrible as people make it out to be but that study is still weird.
Spouses are not really Second hand smoking, since they would really only be near it in a car, rarely do smokers sit right next to spouses when they are smoking. (I know many people who smoke outside their homes).
I would really like to see it done on people who inhale a lot of SHS, like a bartender, who doesnt smoke.
Lastly on the spouse thing again, if my shirt smells like smoke and you sniff it, you are not second hand smoking, if you are breathing the smoke from the cigarette and or the exhale, then you are SHSing.
You shouldn't be so quick to turn to the first study that pops up on google, you have to be careful about these things when claiming them as the be all end all of an argument.
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The body runs on oxygen, if there is more smoke, inhalation of oxygen is reduced. Regardless of the long term health hazard, it is an immediate health hazard, especially for those who are exposed to it more often and in higher concentration than spouses (bartenders, waiters), not to mention that those jobs require physical actions that increase the need for oxygen. Being a spouse does not characterize an environment of smoke exposure.
To John F: The examples you gave are all of situations where the air quality is a direct result of necessary processes. Smoking is completely unnecessary. And workplace health is actually one of the major factors driving the bans, it just isn't the popular one because it is harder to argue against.
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The debate over the health effects related to second hand smoking are absolutely irrelevant to this discussion.
The main issue surrounding this debate is a rights issue. If I own my own house, what right do you have to prohibit me from smoking. If I own my own house and invite my friends who all know that we will be smoking, what right do you have to prohibit us from smoking. If I have a party and serve food at my house, can you prohibit smoking? If I charge people for the food? You can see where this is going.
The point is that anyone in the restaurant INCLUDING the waiters and waitresses have the ability to pick up their stuff and walk out. The people who own the establishment are the ones who should be making the rules. Not a bunch of whining nannies who think they own the world.
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Amen. That is the core issue. The fact that the excuses for making such laws are based on flimsy science is secondary, but interesting.
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Actually, if you own the house and charge for the food to gain a profit, then the smoking ban is not your problem. Your problem would be tax evasion.
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You also have the right to walk around swinging your arms, as long as you don't punch anyone in the face. I am all about individual liberties, but smoking clearly goes beyond that.
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Actually that analogy doesn't hold any water in my opinion. This isn't about me walking around outside on public property and purposefully blowing smoke in your face. There may be some justification for legislation against that.
This is about you walking into MY restaurant where I deem smoking appropriate. If you don't like that, you can leave and go somewhere else.
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It's not quite that simple. Assuming you're not some anarchist / libertarian fundamentalist, you probably want to keep food safety laws on the books. If you are going to serve food to the public, then that food cannot be contaminated / undercooked. You do not have the right to sell a hamburger meal with raw meat. Establishments that are open to the public need to meet a certain level of health standards.
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Allowing smoking in restaurants does not contaminate food (unless they're not following food safety regulations to begin with). Do you think cooks and servers stand around with a cigarette in their mouth dropping ash in the food?
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You are free to smoke in your car. Make sure you shut the windows since there's no second hand smoke effect.
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Not suggesting it's the end all, be all. Just suggesting that it provides evidence contrary to those who believe that SHS is ABSOLUTELY a significant killer. (By the way, CDC released relative risk numbers that were high by reducing the confidence interval from the industry standard of 95% to a much less stringent 90%). As for the statistical analysis here...
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"Never smokers married to a current smoker were subdivided into categories according to the smoking status of their spouse: 1-9, 10-19, 20, 21-39, 40 cigarettes consumed per day for men and women, with the addition of pipe or cigar usage for women. Former smokers were considered as an additional category.
We calculated the age adjusted relative risk of death and 95% confidence interval as a function of smoking status of the spouse by using Cox proportional hazards regression. A fully adjusted relative risk was calculated by using a model that included age and seven potential confounders at baseline: race (white, non-white), education level (< 12, 12, > 12 years), exercise (none or slight, moderate, heavy), body mass index (< 20, 20-22.99, 23-25.99, 26-29.99, 30), urbanisation (five population sizes), fruit or fruit juice intake (0-2, 3-4, 5-7 days a week), and health status (good, fair, poor, sick). Analyses were carried out for all participants and for healthy participants (those with no history of cancer, heart disease, or stroke at baseline). The relative risk was also calculated for current cigarette smokers (cigarettes only) as a function of number of cigarettes consumed per day for the entire cohort. For reference, the age adjusted death rate has been calculated by cause of death for all never smokers.
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This in some ways may help others quit smoking altogether. I am glad this law was passed since in most restaurants (except bars) people who smoke have no business smoking inside. I can smell it across the restaurant. It sticks to your clothes too. I do go to bars and most times I just become use to the smell of smoke and don't complain about it because it is a bar and this law will hit bars the hardest but what is more important? The general health and well being of the American people or money?
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Shouldn't the owner be the one to decide what "business" goes on inside? You can't force health by legislative mandates. It's all about personal responsibility.
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There are no 'bars' in Virginia; or not in the traditional sense. All establishments must have something like at least 50% of sales from non-alcoholic purchases. Regular bars out of the state pretty much only sell alcohol. We only have restaurants that have a 'bar ambiance' at night.
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It should be banned in all public places.
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right, which excludes privately-owned businesses.
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welcome to the new era virginia, where we have internetz, hybrid cars, and smoke free bars/restaurants.
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It isn't the new era it's a deluded era of backwards thinking and too much government intrusion into our lives.
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I'm thrilled to go downtown and be SMOKE FREE!
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Im not really for or against it, I.E. I don't really care but I will say that a night in a smoke free bar is much more pleasent. I find I can drink more b/c the smoke makes me nauseas (SP?).
But I don't blame smokers for that since I do choose to go to bars when I know smokers will be there, I prefer the nausea with beer then no beer and no nausea ;-)
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It's amazing how people will let their freedoms be taken away because "something stinks and makes my clothes smell bad". This issue should be left to the establishment. If you don't like it, don't go there. It's that simple. For example, Rivermill was always thick with smoke so I chose not to go there. Oh my god. I just took on some personal responsibility. Is that even possible? How can someone do something without the gov't helping them?
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i don't think it's much of an issue of personal responsibility, as the above poster said, but more of making an environment welcoming to both parties. a smoker can still enjoy rivermill without smoking inside it. nonsmokers, on the other hand, would have to deal with the inconvenience of second-hand smoke if it weren't banned.
a smoke-free environment is neutral to both parties. i'm glad this has become law, and would support having smoking prohibited from all enclosed spaces, a la singapore.
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Apparently non-smokers enjoyed bars enough to go to them anyway. Sounds like the environment before December 1 was welcoming enough for everyone.
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Smoking kills people. Hello!! Smoking causes lung and throat cancer. Hello!!! You dramatically increase the likelihood of early DEATH by smoking. Birth defects. Hypertension. You are addicted to a carcinogen. You have no basis for a rational argument. If you smoke, you are an addict. Just like someone addicted to heroine. You don't stop because you CAN'T. You don't smoke because you want to. You smoke because you can't stop. Any ban on smoking is simply trying to HELP people live longer. OMG, what a crime. Keep your filthy, disgusting smoke away from me and my children.
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