MCPOLICY: SMOKING, BURGERS DON'T MIX

Smoking and Big Macs don't mix -- at least not in McDonald's company-owned restaurants in the United States and Canada.

McDonald's Corp. Wednesday banned smoking in all of its company-owned stores in both countries. The move, effective immediately, comes about a year after the fast-food giant began testing the concept in 40 of its U.S. outlets.

By the end of 1993, about 2,220 of its company-owned and franchise restaurants were smoke free.

Wednesday's announcement means that more than 3,600 of 9,100 McDonald's restaurants nationwide are smoke free. Another 253 outlets in Canada are now smoke free.

Corporation officials urged the remaining franchise restaurants to follow suit.

In Cape Girardeau, officials with the American Stop Smoking Intervention Study or ASSIST project applauded the move.

"I think it sets a precedent that will hopefully be followed by other chain restaurants," said St. Francis Medical Center's Barbara Crowell, a member of the Southeast Missouri Cancer Control Coalition and the local ASSIST committee.

"McDonald's has a great opportunity for setting a good example for our youths," she said.

Ericka Hendrickson, local ASSIST coordinator, called the move "very encouraging."

Hendrickson said she is aware of only one restaurant in Cape Girardeau that is smoke free: Fazoli's, a fast-food Italian eatery that opened this year.

But Jerry Davis, owner of the McDonald's franchise restaurant in Cape Girardeau and another in Jackson, isn't ready to jump on the smoke-free bandwagon.

Davis' restaurants have smoking and non-smoking sections for customers. The kitchen and crew areas, however, are off limits to smoking. Employees on breaks must sit in the smoking section if they want to light up, he said.

A smoker himself, Davis said that having smoking and non-smoking sections have not been a problem in his restaurants. "I haven't heard any complaints," said Davis. "It has been a neutral issue as far as I am concerned."

He said his primary concern is getting the customers "good, hot, fast food" and that "everybody leaves there full and happy."

Davis said that smoking "would be out tomorrow" at his restaurants if it were shown that such a policy would be good for business.

The whole issue will certainly be a topic of discussion at McDonald's convention in April in Las Vegas, Davis said.

McDonald's Corp. is the second fast-food chain to approve a smoke-free policy. Arby's Inc. announced last month that it will enforce a no-smoking policy in the 257 restaurants it owns starting this summer. The company also has urged its 1,991 franchise outlets to follow suit.

"I think these steps do tend to empower people to speak out," said Southeast Missouri Hospital's Maggie Friend, a former smoker who is involved in the ASSIST effort.

Friend doesn't believe Missouri restaurants will lose business if they ban smoking on their premises. "Seventy-five percent of Missourians are not smokers," she said.

"We are not fanatics," said Friend. But she said that it makes sense to have a smoke-free environment because of the danger of secondhand smoke.

The Environmental Protection Agency has said secondhand smoke is a carcinogen that kills about 3,000 nonsmokers a year from lung cancer and is responsible for up to 300,000 cases of bronchitis and pneumonia in children. The Tobacco Institute, however, has challenged those estimates.

Friend said separate smoking and no-smoking sections in restaurants still expose nonsmokers to secondhand smoke.

"Telling a patron of a restaurant who doesn't want to breathe tobacco byproducts that your restaurant has a no-smoking section is analogous to telling someone who is allergic to chlorine that it's only been poured in one end of the swimming pool," said Friend.

Hendrickson, in her work with ASSIST, mailed a survey to 267 Cape Girardeau businesses, including all the restaurants.

"I've gotten back about 25 percent, which is a good return rate for a survey of that type," she said. Fifty-four percent of respondents said their businesses were smoke free.

But Hendrickson, whose duties with ASSIST include helping companies become smoke free, said relatively few restaurants have responded to the survey. She said she plans to redistribute the survey to those who haven't responded.

Hendrickson said non-smoking customers have in the past often been reluctant to publicly call for a smoke-free environment in the restaurants they frequent.

"I think there is a silent majority out there that doesn't make waves and doesn't come in and say, `I wish you were smoke free.'"

But, she said, McDonald's decision may prompt more non-smoking restaurant patrons to speak out. "I think it is very encouraging."