Burning at both ends

It's a battle that is raging on in bars, restaurants and in the halls of government across the country. Even though it hasn't hit Cape Girardeau yet, it already has polarized some in St. Louis County and Paducah, Ky.

As health-consciousness becomes more and more popular, the calls for banning smoking in public places become louder. So far in Cape Girardeau the calls haven't become loud enough for government intervention, though.

The debate begs the question: Whose rights are more valuable -- those of smokers or the people who have to take in the second-hand smoke?

"We'd love for every place to be smoke free," said Nicole Thieret with the American Lung Association's Cape Girardeau office. "It's a public-health concern and it can affect anyone, at any place, at any time."

Thieret said in her work she has seen numerous people with health conditions, such as asthma, whose exposure to second-hand smoke can trigger full-blown attacks.

"For people who do smoke, if they could just put off that after-dinner smoke for 15 minutes, it would help others greatly," Thieret said.

Thieret points out the effects of second-hand smoke: premature wrinkling, coughing, reduction in lung growth and function in children, increased heart rate and poorer immunity to sickness.

Her organization, she said, would advocate any responsible ban.

As Karen Daugherty, Jan Eichhorn and Vicky Moore sit in the smoking section at Port Cape restaurant and bar this week, they're not worried about breathing in second-hand smoke or carrying the noxious odor out the door with them. Daugherty is a smoker, Moore smokes on occasion and Eichhorn quit 17 years ago.

"I don't think anyone should have the right to say there can be no smoking in restaurants or bars in Cape, period," Moore said.

The lone full-time smoker at the table, Daugherty jokes that if there were a smoking ban, "I'd have to move."

But many states and municipalities are doing just what Moore, Eichhorn and Daugherty oppose by placing government bans on smoking in public places. Major bans of varying degrees are currently in place in 10 states: California, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Idaho, Maine, Massachusetts, New York, Rhode Island and, most recently, Montana, where the state legislature just passed a ban.

The oldest is the California ban, which was first enacted in 1994 and expanded to restaurants and bars in 1998.

Currently, a ban proposed in St. Louis County would forbid smoking in all public places, even casinos, and a ban suggested in Paducah has ignited impassioned rhetoric and city government meetings.

Critics of such bans say the restaurant and bar businesses suffer, while proponents of bans say business has actually increased.

A ban for Cape

Phil Brinson, co-owner of Buckner's Brewing Co. and Ragsdales, doesn't think such a ban would make much of an impact on business.

"I think it would have a negligible net effect," Brinson said.

Brinson has come up with a novel approach to the problem. Buckner's is smoke-free until 10 p.m., when smoking is only allowed at the bar area in the front of the restaurant. The downstairs bar, Ragsdales, is always a smoking establishment, and patrons there can order food from the restaurant upstairs.

A non-smoker, Brinson doesn't like to be exposed to second-hand smoke, but he doesn't really feel one way or the other about a ban.

"My partner and I are non-smokers, and when we go out to a restaurant we don't want to smell smoke," he said. "Smoking and non-smoking areas shouldn't be right next to each other."

Doc Cain, owner of Port Cape, is against such bans. But he still said there should be separate areas where non-smokers don't have to breathe in the fumes.

"It's an individual choice," Cain said. "As long as a restaurant provides a good area that's smoke free, it shouldn't be a problem. It's not an issue that needs to be legislated."

Cain's restaurant and bar has two separate rooms for smoking and non-smoking.

"This situation is good," said Port Cape patron Moore. "When it's not separated, breathing it does create a health hazard for people who don't smoke."

As of right now, the city government doesn't have any plans to enact such a ban, said Cape Girardeau Mayor Jay Knudtson.

"Very few citizens have come to me on this issue," he said.

Most of the city's concentration of smoking revolves around discarded cigarette butts and the war on litter, he said.

Until the time comes when the issue does gain enough momentum, it will be confined to conversations in smoking sections and non-smoking sections.

msanders@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 182