One recent night, I dropped into a local bar for a beer. There were two people there, one on either side of the bar. There was a pack of cigarettes sitting on the bar. The stench in the room told me that the pack had been opened recently. Or maybe there was a recent tobacco bonfire in the room.
Taken aback, I asked the bartender if there was smoking in there. The bartender mistook my query for a request to smoke, and said, "Sure, go ahead."
That's illegal in Austin. So, I thought I'd file a complaint.
Even if I stipulate that your right to satisfy your physical addiction trumps my right not to get cancer, this is still wrong. The law says "no smoking" and cheating isn't fair to the venues that stick by the rules.
I called the local Health and Human Services Department (972-5600) during business hours. I asked to file a complaint for a smoking ban violation. I was connected to some department, presumably the Environmental and Consumer Health Unit. They asked me for the name of the business, its address, the date and time of the occurrence, and what happened.
They also asked if I wanted to leave my name and telephone number. I asked if the information is confidential, and if it is subject to an open records request. They said they could not guarantee confidentiality, so I chose to make the complaint anonymously.
My understanding is that an inspector will visit the venue and if a violation is found they will work with the owner to bring them into compliance. Legal action occurs after repeated violations.
A lawsuit to overturn the ban was back in the news recently. The main claim is that bar owners want individuals, not businesses, responsible. The bar owners say that the rules are unclear as to what they need to do.
This is disingenuous. The bar owners are trying to manufacture a chasm of gray out of a split hair. Let's start here: when a patron asks, "Can I smoke?" just say, "No."
You don't say, "I don't care, it's your responsibility." And certainly not, "Sure, go ahead." The answer is simple: tell them the law says no. If you do that one simple step, then most of the uncertainty crumbles away.
So what if the person won't comply? For goodness sake, we are talking about bars here. What business (besides the Mafia) has more experience and ability to deal with uncompliant patrons?
The current complaint driven process is the right way to go about this. When I file a complaint, an inspector will investigate, and action will be taken if warranted. If I had to complain against an individual, I'd instead have to call 911 and summon an officer to make an arrest. The "smoking police" that live only in the rhetoric of the ban opponents would become a reality. If there is going to be a smoking ban, the way we are doing it makes sense.
I left the smoky bar and went down the street to another bar. A packed bar. One that enforces the smoking ordinance. Who knows, maybe someday soon, the smoking ban actually could turn out to be good for business.
