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Businesses prepare for smoking law effects
By JENNIFER LIBERTO To Joe Cuce, Amendment 6 smells of the sweet return of tobacco-stained customers enjoying his grits and biscuits. Cuce recently banned smoking in his tiny pink and turquoise diner, the Jersey Cafe, in anticipation of a statewide indoor smoking prohibition, which Florida voters approved overwhelmingly last week. The day after his restaurant's yellowed walls and darkened carpets were stripped, cleaned and aired, he lost all but one of his smoking customers. Some of them had been eating there for nearly two decades. "I would love to get my smokers back," said Cuce, whose restaurant initially struggled severely but has since recovered as nonsmokers have rediscovered his nook at Mariner Boulevard and State Route 50. "I can't believe after 18 years they just stopped coming." Soon, thousands of Florida smokers will have no place to sit, eat and puff indoors because 70 percent of the state's voters -- a margin mirrored in Hernando County -- said "yes" to an amendment that prohibits tobacco use inside workplaces. The measure was designed to protect workers from secondhand smoke and becomes part of the state Constitution on Jan 7. As worded, the amendment stops smoking virtually anywhere people earn a wage, except tobacco shops, designated hotel rooms and stand-alone bars that serve little food. That includes most restaurants, bowling alleys, offices, barbershops and laundries. How it is going to affect Hernando County businesses economically depends on whom you ask. Most business owners and experts are eager to see what kind of loopholes may be created in the law's final wording. The Legislature has until July 7 to iron out the exact definitions and enforcement legislation. Experts agree that is where the next battle lies. Despite the landslide vote, the policy could be toothless without the reinforcing definitions and penalties the Legislature must enact, said tobacco expert Stanton Glantz at the University of California-San Francisco. Glantz predicted that tobacco companies and restaurant owners will throw money at lawmakers, lobbying for weak enforcement penalties, long phase-in periods and vaguely defined exemptions. "The tobacco companies own the Florida Legislature, and they own Jeb Bush, and it's going to take a lot to force proper implementing legislation," Glantz said. Already, groups such as the American Legion, Veterans of Foreign Wars and Disabled American Veterans have decided to ask that its posts and clubs be exempt from the smoking ban, said Dyke Shannon, executive director of the Florida American Legion in Orlando. They plan to argue that they qualify as stand-alone bars. "None of our posts have a primary business of serving food, so I think we may be okay under this," Shannon said. Hernando County business owners who know the ban will affect them are starting to prepare. Several said they plan to put benches and ashtrays outside front entrances. Like Victoria Gibson, owner of Victoria's Steak House & Lounge in Brooksville, many said they were nervous about the law's effect on customers and sales. "I'm really, really scared about it," said Gibson, who was on the phone much of last week trying to see if her separate, enclosed bar area would have to go smoke free. Amendment proponents said the area might be exempt if it gets a separate outside entrance. The economic effects of smoking bans have been researched over the past decade. The independent studies that analyze sales tax revenues in states that have passed bans -- including Vermont, Maine, Utah and California -- tend to show that smoking bans have not had a significant, long-term impact on businesses, Glantz said. "But it's the short-term I'm worried about," said George Martins, whose family owns Spring Hill Lanes on U.S. 19. His family is concerned that bowlers might cut short the time they spend at the bowling alley, which can often be four to six hours. Or worse, his smokers, which he said are more than half of his customers, may choose not to bowl. Chris Kotsifas, owner of Frankie's Restaurant in downtown Brooksville, said he has no intention of enforcing the ban. He's a nonsmoker. He even hates when smoke gets in his hair and clothing. But asking a customer to stop smoking is an invasive request and threatens a customer's rights, he said. "They're trying to make me a cop in this, but I'm not going to tell someone they have to stop smoking," said Kotsifas, who has some regular customers who stub out at least five butts a meal. Some restaurant workers couldn't be happier about the amendment, including Mary Smith, manager of Mykonos II in Brooksville. Smith was hoping the law would pass to give her a "legal backup" for going smoke free. "It was a godsend to us little guys who can't afford a smoke-free room," said Smith, an ex-smoker who has fielded complaints for years that the smoking section's dirty air drifts toward her non-smokers. While dozens of nonsmokers interviewed by the Times said they were elated about the ban, smokers tended to say they thought the government was meddling in their lives. Some said they would eat faster and smoke after meals. Nilda Smothers of Spring Hill, who spent Thursday evening smoking at Ye Olde Fireside Inn in Brooksville, said she figures she will just start staying home more often. "I hate it. I won't be going out, and I'll just have to smoke at my house," said Smothers, who used to hang out at Luigi's Pizza until the Brooksville Italian restaurant went smoke free in April. At the Jersey Cafe, Cuce hopes that overall the smoking ban will level the economic playing field in the restaurant business. He speaks wistfully of smokers named Charlie, Bruce, Joe and Shorty. But, as a former smoker, he understands why they left. "The need to smoke can sometimes be stronger than anything -- food, friends, even marriage," said Cuce, who was convinced to make the jump in September, after he received a dozen anonymous postcards and letters this summer from nonsmokers pressuring him to ban smoking. A man who prides himself on his friendships with customers, Cuce turned to Dennis Fansler -- the restaurant's only smoking customer who returned -- and asked him if he thinks the rest of his smoking customers will return next year. "Yeah, they'll come back. The food is so good here. They'll all come back," said Fansler, who shuffled toward the door with a cigarette tucked between his fingers. "Except for Charlie. He's taking it personally." -- Jennifer Liberto covers business and development in Hernando County and can be reached at 848-1434. Send e-mail to liberto@sptimes.com .
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