Feature Story

By Trudy Helmsing

Lagniappe staff

Last year, State Sen. Vivian Davis Figures introduced legislation that would put a statewide ban on smoking in restaurants, bars and other workplaces. The bill got bogged down in the senate and did not make it through the legislative session. However, she plans to reintroduce it this year.

“I’ll be bringing it back every year until we pass it,” she said.

A number of municipalities around the state have recently adopted a ban, including Orange Beach, Gulf Shores and Decatur.

On Jan. 7, the Daphne city council conducted a brief public hearing to read an ordinance that would ban smoking in restaurants but was rescheduled for Jan. 22.

“People want it,” Figures said, adding that in a Press-Register poll taken last year, two-thirds of participants said they would prefer a smoke-free environment in Alabama.

If the bill passes, it will affect most businesses. Private clubs that people pay to belong to, cigar bars and tobacco shops will be exempt.

Figures has a very personal reason for wanting the ban. She developed chronic bronchitis in college after being exposed to a great deal of secondhand smoke. When she started working in the senate, people were still allowed to smoke inside in the hallways. Her condition worsened to asthma.

“I’m a witness of the harmful effects of breathing secondhand smoke,” she said.

Since then, Figures has worked to get the Clean Indoor Act passed to ban smoking in public buildings and she almost single-handedly got smoking out of the capital quarters.

“That act just really doesn’t do enough to protect Alabamians from the dangers of secondhand smoke,” she said, which is why she is pushing so hard to get this new legislation passed.

“With health care costs rising, you pay so much more for treatment than for prevention. We need to do everything we can,” she said.

If the law is passed, Alabama will be the 23rd state to go smoke-free.

The main argument that bar and restaurant owners typically have against such bans is that they fear they will lose business if a ban is enacted. However, studies have shown that oftentimes it actually improves when smoking is prohibited.

For the past six weeks, Callaghan’s has been doing a smoke-free night every Tuesday. John Thompson, owner of Callaghan’s, says business has not gone down because of it. If anything it has actually increased.

“It’s pretty popular. We have that contingent who doesn’t want to smell the smoke,” he said.

Thompson’s argument against the ban is based on the fact that he doesn’t like laws that tell him what he can or cannot do in his own business. However, he thinks that if it is enacted, business will go up.

“I actually feel we would benefit from a no smoking policy,” he said.

In response to the argument that a ban would be just another form of government control, Figures thinks the issue is so important that the government needs to step in.

Florida is one state that has gone completely smoke-free. Figures mentioned that families in the Mobile area are actually crossing states lines to go out to eat in a smoke-free environment. So, in that case, allowing smoking is actually taking away from our businesses.

If a ban is enacted, it could also decrease the potential of lawsuits by employees who are exposed to health problems caused by secondhand smoke.

The bottom line is that if you can’t smoke anywhere, how would that hurt business, when all the smokers are clearly not all going to quit going out.

“People say they have a right to smoke. Yes, they do have a right to smoke. But people have a greater right to breathe clean air,” Figures said. “They can do it elsewhere where it doesn’t affect other people who don’t wish to breathe it.”

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