Restaurants and Bars say outdoor smoking ban will hurt business

Outdoor bistros say stringent smoking rules will kill biz
Fume and doom
By Richard Weir | Tuesday, June 2, 2009 | http://www.bostonherald.com | Local Coverage


Hub bar and restaurant owners are burning up over the city’s sudden crackdown on puffing patrons on rooftop decks or in sidewalk cafes as part of the city’s tough new workplace smoking rules.

“We used to have a patio full of people, smokers and others who don’t smoke but are socializing with them,” said George Lewis, owner of The Foundation Lounge at the Hotel Commonwealth in Kenmore Square. “Now it’s empty.”

Lewis is among a group of tavern owners considering challenging the new smoking restriction in court. They fear the ban, coupled with an increased meals tax, will scare away customers at a time when profits are already suffering due to the economy.

“I’m afraid we’re going to lose business,” said Tony Castagnozzi of the Rattlesnake Bar and Grill on Bolyston Street. “People will say, ‘Screw it. We’ll go out of town to a place where we can have dinner and a cigar outside.’ It just makes it tougher and tougher to do business in the city.”

Last month, city inspectors began visiting the 250 or so bars and cafes with decks and patios, handing out warning letters and putting proprietors on notice that they face costly fines - $200 for a first offense, $700 for a second and $1,000 for a third - if customers are caught smoking in any “adjacent outdoor area” served by staff.

Boston Public Health Commission spokeswoman Ann Scales said after the educational outreach ends in the coming weeks, the city will begin enforcing the smoking ban in earnest by handing out violations. ‘We don’t pass regulations that we don’t enforce,” she said, adding that chronic violations could affect a bar’s liquor license.

Angry publicans say they were caught off guard by the measure, which got little attention in December when the city, which banned smoking inside restaurants and bars in 2003, enacted some of the toughest smoking restrictions in the country.

The outdoor-workplace smoking ban was tucked into the new regulations, which included a proposal to extinguish cigar bars that made national headlines. The issue sparked a fight from smoking bars that led to a 10-year reprieve.

But bar owners did little to protest the outdoor ban and are now scrambling to deal with what Castagnozzi calls “a manager and doorman’s nightmare.” On some nights, as many as 50 people stand in line waiting to get upstairs to the Rattlesnake’s popular roof deck. “Now anyone wanting to smoke will have to go back down the line and outside to smoke. When they come back, people will be like, ‘Who are you?’ ’ he said.
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