Smoke bomb
Smoking - for some it's a tradition that marks the pleasant termination of a good meal, for others it's a scourge. But whatever you feel about the weed, more and more evidence shows that smoking in restaurants, cafés and pubs is increasingly unacceptable to staff, customers and health experts.
The evidence is pretty compelling. According to a TUC report every year 165 bar workers die as a result of passive smoking at work. A caterer.com survey of industry workers found that seven out of 10 favour a smoking ban in restaurants, five out of 10 want a ban in hotels and four out of 10 think it should apply to pubs.
Moves towards a ban in this country were made last month when a private member's bill sponsored by Labour MP Gareth Thomas culminated in a vote in Parliament (Caterer, 1 May). In the vote 117 MPs voted in favour and 43 against banning smoking in restaurants and cafés.
Last week the TUC lent its weight to a smoking ban, publishing what it claims is evidence that the hospitality industry has been fooled - according to TUC investigations, research which concludes that smoking bans will damage business may have been paid for by the tobacco lobby.
In addition, a Mori poll carried out for the anti-smoking organisation Ash revealed that one in three customers would eat out more frequently if restaurants were smoke-free, and fewer than one in 10 prefers to eat in a smoking restaurant.
Last month's vote adds to mounting pressure on the Government to consider a ban. It is rumoured to be looking afresh at the issue, but officially the Department of Health doesn't think a ban on smoking in all public places is justified, if desirable, partly because bans are difficult to implement.
The dangers of clumsy implementation were brought home very quickly in New York following the introduction of an all-out smoking ban in restaurants and bars. Within two weeks, a nightclub bouncer was killed after he asked a customer to put out a cigarette. The alcohol-fuelled stabbing incident involved two brothers wielding knives.
Restaurateurs and bar owners in Ireland are bracing themselves for an all-out ban from next January. Here, it's the staff and not the customers in Irish restaurants, cafés and bars who have forced the legislation through, which makes putting it into practice all the more difficult.
Henry O'Neill, chief executive of the Restaurant Association of Ireland, is fuming over the ban. "The ban will be a big problem for restaurants to implement, but not as big a problem as for pubs because we have such a major pub culture," he says. "It will also be difficult to implement and if anyone is found smoking in any establishment it's the premises owner, not the smoker, who will be fined. The smokers will get off scot-free."
Yet despite the growing pressure, some organisations have yet to be convinced of the advantages of a smoking ban in the UK's restaurants and bars. The British Hospitality Association is unperturbed by the TUC's allegations that the industry has been deceived, but says it will look again if there is strong evidence that bans are good for business.
It will be very difficult to square this circle of competing needs. Clearly most restaurateurs would prefer the Government to make the decision for them rather than going it alone by imposing all-out bans themselves and risking damage to their business.
The fact is fewer than one in six restaurants in the UK have non-smoking places, according to Judith Watt, of Ash. Her group's research on fine-dining restaurants found that only one major restaurant, Rules, is totally smoke-free. As she says: "If our best and brightest restaurants are not responding to customer needs or public demand, the rest probably won't either."
What do UK restaurant and café owners think?
Michael Meaney opened his chain of fine-dining and totally non-smoking restaurants on the fringes of South-eastern towns. He says the no-smoking rule has proved a success, with business running at twice the levels of the previous site occupier.
Nick Gross, who is opening a gastropub, Devonshire House, in Chiswick, west London, this week, is unconvinced. "We would like to separate the smokers but it's not possible because we don't have reserved areas."
Theodore Kyriakou, who has three restaurants and mezze bars operating the Real Greek brand, believes a total ban would remove 70% of his business: "It's a very fascist way of thinking. How can I tell my customers you can't smoke when my facade faces a street with more than 3,000 cars a day going past?"
James Horler, chief executive of La Tasca, the Spanish tapas chain, thinks it's up to owners, not the Government or the TUC, to decide. In his 31 restaurants the air is changed 12 times an hour. In Spain, smoking bans are virtually unknown, he says: "It's an issue of human rights, and people's freedom to choose."
Bruno Asselin, manager of the Pharmacy restaurant in London's Notting Hill Gate, says an all-out ban would definitely hit trade. In his restaurant, smokers have only recently been separated from the rest and are picked up at the booking stage. If a ban were imposed on the downstairs bar, he believes, business would be dramatically affected.
But Asselin knows his staff don't like smoking. "They get upset," he says, and admits that he urges people who have a history of lung cancer in the family to be cautious about the job.
Smoking in New York
It's an amusing sight in one of the most moneyed cities in the world - diners and drinkers huddled on pavements with their cigarettes, forced outside by one of the strictest anti-smoking laws in America, if not the world.
New York City's Smoke-Free Air Act became law on 31 March this year. Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a former smoker turned anti-smoking zealot, is the driving force behind a move which prohibits smoking in almost all workplaces, bars and restaurants. It toughens up 1995 anti-smoking laws, and there are few exemptions. They include: owner-operated bars where the owners actually run the bar; restricted outdoor dining areas at restaurants with no roof or other ceiling enclosure; and bars with separate ventilated smoking rooms where no employees, food or drink are allowed.
Bloomberg and his city council say their priority is to protect people, including hospitality workers, from second-hand smoke. Some prominent restaurateurs - like Union Square Café owner Danny Meyer, and Michael O'Neal, owner of O'Neal's restaurant - lent their support when the legislation was proposed, and those contacted by Caterer seem to concur.
At the Divine Bar on East 51st Street, a spokeswoman says: "I like to breathe. We have very happy employees now and it's a much nicer place to have food. I don't think it's affected business much."
Sarah Nickolson, manager at the Mercury Bar on Ninth Avenue, says trade fell a little at the beginning. "It's fine now. And it's better when you walk into a bar with no smoking," she says.
But the law is being seen as a hassle, with staff having to politely ask smokers to go outside. Some, like the Mercury, are taking credit card details to prevent patrons drinking and then doing a runner on the pretext that they're off for a smoke.
After a 30-day grace period, the council has imposed fines of up to $2,000 (£1,240) on violators. But the fines penalise establishments rather than individuals, which businesses say is unfair.
"We want to extend hospitality, we're not trained to be cops and they're putting us in that policing function," says Tracy Nieporent, partner in the Myriad Restaurant Group, whose seven New York restaurants include Nobu and the Tribeca Grill. Nieporent estimates business is down between 5% and 10% because of the law, but admits many customers favour it, as "it's not really conducive to fine dining to have smoking".
Things will get even tougher in July, when an anti-smoking law covering New York State will supersede the city one and leave room for even fewer exemptions, including ventilated rooms. Bosses at Soho House, which opened a private members' club in Manhattan last week, say they will get round the state law by allowing smoking patrons to use their rooftop area.
Spokesman Tim Geary says: "We don't think it's going to affect us too much. There are 24 bedrooms people can smoke in, and our roof deck. Mayor Bloomberg is being extremely heavy-handed. I wouldn't be surprised if the law is reversed."
One Italian restaurant, Serafino Sandro, is putting tobacco in food, serving the likes of tobacco gnocchi and filet mignon in a tobacco wine sauce. And in an undercover pub crawl recently by reporters at the New York Daily News, 16 out of 46 bars allowed them to light up.
By Gillian Drummond
