Free Market Helps Eateries Kick the Habit

The News & Advance
Published: September 23, 2008

While efforts in recent years to prohibit smoking in restaurants have failed in the General Assembly, the legislative debates have called attention to the subject. And that has led more restaurants to ban smoking without an edict from the state.

That was the message last week from Gary Hagy, state director of the Virginia Department of Health’s division of food and environmental services. The legislative debate, he said, has focused greater attention on restaurant smoking, which has increased awareness about which restaurants allow their customers to puff away during meals and which ones don’t.

Whether the restaurant allows smoking is a new part of information posted by the health department on its Web site along with the results of restaurant inspections. The “non-smoking” addition was added last week.

A glance at the restaurants by localities shows the city of Bedford in the lead with 78 percent of its restaurants declaring themselves off-limits to smokers during meal times. The city also finds itself near the top of the list on a percentage basis among all localities in the state.

About 67 percent of restaurants statewide don’t allow smoking anywhere in the establishments.

In the Central Virginia Health District, Bedford County is tops for non-smokers with 71 percent of the restaurants kicking the meal-time habit. Amherst County trails with 64 percent; Campbell County, 63 percent; and Lynchburg came in at 58 percent. In Appomattox County, only one in two restaurants has banned smoking.

For the record, 100 percent of Craig County restaurants have eliminated the smoking option, but there are only three of them.

Hagy said putting the information on the Restaurant Inspections section of the Web site is a good fit for the health department. “There’s a lot of interest in inspections and we have the ability to collect the information and maintain it.”

The Web site (http://www.vdh.virginia.gov and click on “Restaurant Inspections”) makes it possible for potential customers to check local restaurants so they can know before they arrive whether smoking is banned or not. Within the smoking information, the site allows further sorting by designated areas or by whether smoking is permitted anywhere.

Goode’s Country Kitchen allows smoking in designated areas. But owner Betty Goode says the number of customers who smoke has dropped over the years to about “three or four a day.” The smokers are put in a private room.

She said she had hoped the state would pass a law banning smoking in restaurants. “I don’t want it at all,” the non-smoker said.

As the owner of the restaurant, she has every right to ban smoking if she wants to. Without a state ban, that’s a decision she has to make for her customers.

The dangers of second-hand smoke are real, which is why the government should have stepped in to prohibit smoking in public places, such as restaurants.

But the folks in Bedford should be pleased that as many of their restaurants have taken the initiative on their own — without the force of government — to prohibit smoking in their establishments. That, of course, is the better way.