Restaurants are missing smoking customers, and outdoor dining is becoming the truce that brings them back.
By TOM ZUCCO
Published November 16, 2003
It's one of those cases of addition by subtraction.
Floridians overwhelmingly passed a constitutional amendment last year that bans smoking in bars and restaurants, among other places.
The ban took effect July 1, and one of the immediate effects was that smokers started to find other places to light up.
Soon afterward, something else happened. Dozens of Tampa Bay area restaurants began building patios and decks or making improvements to outdoor areas in an attempt to keep smokers from leaving or lure them back.
So far, it seems to be working.
"The second half of July was awful for our bar, which is part of our restaurant," said Malio Iavarone, owner of Malio's Restaurant in Tampa. "You want to make smokers feel like regular people."
To do that, Iavarone created a designated smoking area outside. "And now," Iavarone said, "business is back to normal."
How each restaurant addresses the new rule is as different as their menus. The owners of Midtown Sundries in downtown St. Petersburg turned an outdoor overhang into a patio area.
The Green Iguana on West Shore Boulevard in Tampa and the Durango Steak House in St. Petersburg also have built or are building outdoor dining areas for smokers.
Even Bern's Steak House in Tampa, where dinner for two can easily top $100, is thinking about at least adding plants and tables near its front door.
"On a day like this, I'm actually glad I smoke," Michael Steele, 37, said as he finished a tuna salad and lit a cigarette Friday at a table outside Midtown Sundries. "I know the weather won't be like this all the time. But the restaurant is doing everything it can for people who smoke, and we appreciate it."
Midtown Sundries principal owner Chuck Kott said he had heard rumors last year about the passage of a smoking ban and got a permit for 40 outdoor seats on the restaurant's east side.
"At first, I just waited to see what would happen" after the ban took effect, Kott said. "I immediately dropped about 10 percent of my business, and if you know anything about the restaurant business, that's substantial."
Kott, whose indoor restaurant seats 275, quickly bought two plastic tables, umbrellas and eight chairs. He has since added three more tables.
"And my 10 percent loss has come back," he said. "Smokers at the bar can walk outside, have a smoke and come back in. Or they can stay and eat outside.
"I didn't like the law," Kott said, "because it didn't take any ownership viewpoint at all. I'm just glad most of my customers came back."
Until July 1, smokers at Bern's had their choice of the lounge, a smoker's dining room or the dessert room. Now, they have their choice of anywhere in the parking lot.
"We're talking right now about maybe adding benches, high tables and potted plants out front near the valet area," Bern's spokeswoman Heather Sherer-Berkoff said. "But I don't foresee us adding a deck and serving food outside."
Depending on the extent of the addition, not all restaurants that add outdoor smoking areas need building permits. And most cities don't track how many restaurants apply for permits to add patios or other structures.
But St. Petersburg anticipated the smoking ban and approved a program that fast-tracks the permiting process for restaurants.
It appears, however, that some restaurants have decided to build first and apply for a permit later.
"We've only had two or three requests," said Renee Ruggiero of the city's development services department. "And we were surprised."
She knows there are many more restaurants that recently have added seats outside.
"The restaurants that have made additions are either living within the law, or they have some outdoor seating that hasn't been approved," Ruggiero said.
Restaurants that don't have the required permits could be cited for code violations.
As of Nov. 1, the state had received nearly 800 complaints against hotels and restaurants accused of violating the smoking ban. A business is issued a warning, and if followup visits still show violations, it can be be fined as much as $500.
That, however, rarely happens. The two state agencies charged with enforcement, the Department of Health and the Division of Hotels and Restaurants, have hired no additional employees to enforce the ban.
Meanwhile, restaurant owners are watching for one potential consequence of the open-air dining boomlet: customers who eat outdoors and leave before paying the check. When New York City enacted its restaurant smoking ban in the spring, the practice became so prevalent it was called smoke and scram.
Several area restaurant owners say they haven't seen that problem yet.
In fact, some customers are bringing items to the new smoking areas.
Penny Good, 64, donated a plastic table and chairs to the tiny smoking area under the ficus tree behind Casa Cortes in Gulfport. Another regular donated the plastic canopy.
"It's got some holes in it and lets in the rain," Good said as she watched a fisherman head in from Boca Ciega Bay. "But we still sit out here and laugh.
"It's got a great view of the water and there's a great breeze. But the best part is that we never really got to know each other inside.
