The Willow Glen Resident

Photograph by Skye Dunlap

Barred: Scott Paine, left, and Horst Brenner enjoy a cigar at Willow Glen Billiards and Brew. Come Jan. 1, they most likely won't be able to light up in the bar anymore.

Local bars consider effect of no-smoking legislation

Sharky's, Plaza and Billiards and Brew are most impacted

By Cecily Barnes

In the 1950s, movie legend James Dean rarely sauntered through an on-screen bar without a cherry-tipped cigarette between his lips.

Today, however, Dean's suggestive drags would have to be filmed outside the bar--beneath a newly constructed patio or, in the worst of situations, dodging raindrops in a dingy alley. If he were in the smoke-free towns of Los Gatos, Berkeley or San Luis Obispo, Dean would have to relegate his habit to the inside of a car--with no ashing out the window.

Come the first of the year, all California bars and taverns--the smoker's last refuges--will bear the no-smoking symbol, including Willow Glen's three smoker-friendly bars: Willow Glen Billiards and Brew, Plaza Inn and Sharky's of Willow Glen. While bar owners accept the law and plan to comply, all three fear the law will hurt business.

"I respect the law," said Jess Martinez, owner of Plaza Inn. "And whatever the law is I'll do it, but I get quite a few customers who come to this bar to smoke. I'm worried it's going to hurt the business."

According to Martinez and Sharky's owner Fran Crozier, most customers in their bars smoke. In preparation for the new law, both owners plan to post no-smoking signs and inform their customers ahead of time.

"I expect the new law will affect my business; however, I have no alternative but to comply," Crozier said. "I'll be posting signs at the front entrance and taking ashtrays off the bar." Crozier also plans to talk to her landlord about setting up an outdoor smoking area for customers. The smoking area would be behind Sharky's, not in front of the White Dove Cafe on Lincoln Avenue.

Willow Glen Billiards and Brew is somewhat worse off than Sharky's or Plaza Inn since less than a year ago they sank thousands of dollars into humidified cigar lockers and an elaborate air-filtration system that will soon prove useless. Co-owner John Karamanos says he is banking on the state setting ventilation standards that bars can meet in order to retain smoking.

"I've got to believe that the state will set ventilation standards," Karamanos said. "I find it hard to believe that you're not going to allow smoking anywhere; [I] think someone is going to challenge the law."

Karamanos, who works installing industrial air filtration, ventilation and refrigeration systems for companies such as Cisco Systems, Adobe, Novell and Lockheed, is trying to get appointed to the committee that will advise the state on ventilation standards. Karamanos says whatever standard the state comes up with, he's confident he can make Billiards and Brew comply. Some anti-smoking advocates, however, argue that secondhand smoke simply can't be eliminated.

"They haven't established a standard because research is showing you can't eliminate secondhand smoke," said Theresa Boschert, assistant director of BREATH, California's Smoke-Free Bar Program.

"This law is specifically about the third leading preventable cause of death in the United States," said Paul Hunting, health education consultant with the Tobacco Control Section of the Department of Health Services. "That's secondhand smoke."

Smoke-free bars and clubs follow on the heels of Assembly Bill 13, which the California State Legislature passed in 1995 to protect all employees from secondhand smoke in the workplace. While restaurants, office buildings and other workplaces went smoke-free immediately following the law's passage, bars, taverns and gaming clubs were granted an extension until January 1998. Beginning the first of the year, smokers can light up only in their homes, cars, tobacco shops, private smoking clubs and certain hotel lobbies.

"The purpose of the law is to protect workers from the hazards of secondhand smoke," said Ken August, spokesman for the California Department of Health Services. "Workers in bars, taverns and gaming clubs deserve the same kind of safe working conditions as you or I do."

According to August, 82 percent of Californians are nonsmokers, and many people support the new law. A study conducted by UCSF professor Stanton Glantz shows that the smoking ban will not adversely affect business for bar owners. The National Smokers Alliance has disputed Glantz's study, putting forth its own research results which says this is not so. Bar owners also disbelieve Glantz's results, asking how an academic could draw such conclusions without even visiting the bars.

"They got Stanton Glantz from the university telling legislators it won't hurt your business, but I bet the dumb son of a bitch has never been in a bar," said Marvin Easternby, owner of the Jury Room. "If he took a survey, he never contacted me."

Members of the National Smokers Alliance are placing their hopes on two bills before the state Legislature that would grant bars, taverns and gaming clubs an extension on the smoke-free workplace law.Business owners are also counting on the state to establish air-filtration standards, which bars could meet in order to remain smoking establishments. However an extension on air filtration standards wouldn't likely go into effect until January 1999, one year after all California bars had been smoke-free for 12 months. Anti-smoking advocates say they doubt either bill will become a law.

"I don't think either of those two bills have a chance in the world of coming through," said Hunting. "I think they had their shot, and they didn't make it."

Tobacco shops, private smokers' lounges, employee break rooms, theater stages and certain areas of motel and hotel lobbies will continue to be exempt from the smoke-free law. Small businesses with five or fewer employees can also gain exemption, so long as every employee agrees and the business is not a bar, club or gaming parlor.

"Are you going to allow adults some place in California where they can light up a cigarette with a friend besides the privacy of their own homes?" asked Gary Auxier, vice president of the National Smokers Alliance.

Aside from the aforementioned exemptions, the answer is no.

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